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Ell of Wilful Damage says there's something Blogspot bloggers can do about the annoying "Objectionable Content" warning that shows up every single time anybody visits your blog.

In the big blog blockout of 2008 you may recall I somehow ended up with the infamous "Objectionable Content" warning page. That stung a little.

Flitting around the internet last week I noticed that some blogs have a different warning page - one that alerts to "Adult Content" rather than "Objectionable Content"

I am, dear readers slow on the uptake it would appear, for on further investigation I've found that now if you go into your Settings page you can set for "Adult Content" and this removes the "Objectionable Content" warning and replaces it with the all together more reasonable text below. It's only a small thing, but "Adult" I can live with happily - "Objectionable" just made me sad.

She said it here.

No, you can't turn it all the way off but I agree with Ell that "Adult Content" is typically way more accurate than "Objectionable Content." For instance "objectionable content" might refer to commercial spam, racist, homophobic, factually inaccurate, egregiously personal-characterizing, random, unattributed reposting of other people's work, and so on. "Adult Content" is more likely to be just about sex.

Image from the excellent lawyer-humor page BrainDen.com.

Via newly minted lawyer Jill Filipovic of Feministe turns up yet another one of those wretched, seemingly-beloved-to-lawyers anti-lawyer jokes -- this one with a no-sex class twist.

"What rare thing do you get when you cross a feminist and an attorney?"

Answer: A lawyer who won’t screw you.

Read the quote in context here.

I believe congratulations are in order for passing the bar. Nice work, Jill.

So I realize I've done a couple of posts in the last week that were all related to a stealth brain-changing post from Britni Danielle of Oh My God, That Britni's Shameless who said

I absolutely love when a man comes on my tits or stomach. I adore being covered in come. I also love when a man comes in my mouth. I think it's totally hot. I don't necessarily love having someone come on my face, but if it's someone I'm dating and he really wants to, I'll let him. So where do I HATE when a guy comes? Inside me (without a condom).

Read the quote in context here.

My post about Shere Hite and her view that depictions of men in porn are impoverished compared even to, for instance, their sexual expression while they're masturbating, the one linking to Guttmacher's Rachel K Jones assessing withdrawal as contraception, one about heteronormative assumptions embodied in proposed revisions to the DSM, and even the one from Em & Lo questioning why stains from women's menstrual blood are more problematic than "wet spot" semen stains after intercourse were each influenced by Britni's post questioning the utility and/or desirability not of PIV intercourse but PIV intercourse culminating in male ejaculation as the default/desirable/fallback/ultimate sex act.

Many of the above posts have sparked cool conversations in comments. Other comments have (not-unreasonably, considering) questioned my judgment for being, for instance, so sanguine about "withdrawal." There's a longer answer, which would be the possibly radical idea that intercourse itself should be employed as "foreplay," but the shorter answers lead back to Britni's post.

Cara Kulwicki of the well-known mainstream feminist website Feministe has a just-in-time reminder.

Tomorrow, May 17, is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. This year, IDAHO is focusing on transphobia:

Each year, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (the “IDAHO”, as it is usually called), will see actions and initiatives take place in many countries and contexts and on many different issues.

All these activities and initiatives are a very strong signal to all, decisions makers, public opinion, civil rights movements, human rights defenders, etc. throughout the world that our fights for our Rights as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, intersex, etc… is vibrant!

The Day provides all different kind of actors with a very powerful opportunity to express their demands and to advocate for their case. Each year also, the IDAHO aims at using the extra public, political and media attention that it provides at all levels to highlight one specific aspect of the struggle for sexual rights.

This year, we chose to highlight the often neglected but important issue of Transphobia.

Click here to read the full appeal for rights for all trans people across the world (pdf). And then click here to sign the appeal yourself.

Remember, this is an international appeal, so anyone can sign. And of course, don’t forget to spread the word.

via Questioning Transphobia

They said it here.

Kulwicki, of course, posted this in time. I'm just a bit late to the party. Nevertheless, I've signed the IdahoHomophobia.org appeal myself.

For a variety of other takes see also:
* Pam's House Blend
* The F-Word (from April 9th)
* Rebellious JezebelBlogging
* Female Impersonator
* Mariela Castro, director of Cuba's National Center for Sexual Education
* Gender Blender Blog
* Feminist Catalyst
* Socialist Feminista
* Amy of Appetite for Human Rights (a blog for the modern feminist) (from March 30)

Goose of Living In Outlaw Territory occasionally does the Recipe Tuesday meme. I happened to be on the market for something quick, easy, tasty, and kid-friendly so darned if I didn't print her post (I don't think I've ever printed anyone's post before) and headed to the grocery store.

Here's what I printed. I'm reposting it so that either makes it a Tuesday Recipe by proxy post, a bigger-than-140-character Twitter Retweet, or else just a darn good Tuesday night meal.

So sometimes I want enchiladas mole but I don't want to spend forever wrapping the filling inside each tortilla and I certainly don't want to haul out the spice grinder to hand make my mole. Perhaps that makes me lazy occasionally, so be it.

Here is what I do.

One jar mole paste, diluted with at least two cups water and blended over heat till simmering. This paste tends to want to stay thick so keep adding water if you need to.
15 corn tortillas (cut the sides off so they are rectangular)
Filling, such as-black beans and corn with minced peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and garlic or shredded chicken or pork or whatever you want.
Three cups grated cheese-chedder, monterey jack, queso fresco what have you

Saute up your filling
Spray a glass pan with cooking spray and lay down a layer of tortillas (about 5).
Add a layer of filling, cheese and mole sauce.
Repeat the top the layers with the last batch of tortillas and mole.

Bake at about 350 for 30 minutes.

She said it here.

For once my corner grocery let me down -- no mole sauce of any kind -- so I improvised my own impromptu enchilada sauce with a tub of fresh salsa and a can of tomato sauce.

Otherwise? Wowzie! Quick, easy, and very tasty. I grabbed an ear of fresh corn and some canned black beans, a little pork sausage, some onion and red bell pepper. A little sour cream on top after serving it up and... Mmmm-mmm!

The kids liked it too. Plus there's enough left over for lunches tomorrow.

Or, as Goose put it "It's dang good."

So thanks to a comment a few days ago on this post where I quoted Karen Forsythe's point that intercourse is only one of several options I learned about a cool-concept blog, Feminists with Female Sexual Dysfunction. From the "About" page

Welcome to Feminists with FSD, a blog written by, for, and from the perspective of feminists with female sexual dysfunction.

This project began as after this blogger, a self-identifying feminist with vulvodynia, became fed up with the available information about FSD from a feminist perspective! There are relatively few discussions about this topic on the internet, despite the fact that up to 43% of women experience some form of FSD during thier lifetime according to the American Medical Association - and that’s just in the US! I found that what little material there is, while well-meaning, is all too often misinformed or jumps to distressing (or even outright wrong) conclusions.

This blog’s mission statement is: To provide women with FSD, and their partners, a voice on the internet where we can discuss how feminism influences our views of sex, and how our sexuality influence our views of feminism.

Read the quote in context here.

The intro says a lot, but it skirts the point: vulvodynia, vaginismus, vestibulitis, interstitial cystitis, and other conditions of the pelvic floor makes penis-in-vagina extremely painful. And consequently treatment tends to revolve around making it less painful. Or, ideally, not painful at all, but it's considered progress if treatment only reduces how painful it is.

That's a pretty androcentric outlook. And if we didn't have feminism we could just leave it at that and be done -- less painful good, more painful bad. And if we had only Rush Limbaugh and maybe Twisty Faster's also-androcentric vision of political-lesbian "rad-fem" the answer would be nearly as clear cut: intercourse is bad for women anyway so just don't have PIV intercourse. (Actually see the author's nuanced take on Twisty's ideas about it here.)

But in fact androcentrism isn't the most helpful approach. The biggest one being that the pain often extends beyond PIV penetration to any kind of touch at all. Including wearing clothes, sitting down, walking, etc. The other being that even when the context is sex and even when the desired outcome involves contact, insertion, and intercourse it doesn't have to have anything to do with the convenience of men.

Shocking I know. But all the more reason to examine it from the perspective of those who actually have it instead of their partners or random pundits and passers by.

At Sex 2.0 blogger Maria Diaz presented a session on "Revenge Porn." Here are my rough, non-verbatim notes taken live during the session. Update Calico has posted video transcripts.

Initially inspired by hassles faced by Gretchen Rossi of a TV show called "Real Housewives of Orange County"

• Ex boyfriend started to post photos to thedirty.com after the show aired
• She doesn't talk about it but she's attempted legal action against the website

So! What is revenge porn?

• Photos or images distributed by someone in an attempt to humiliate the subject; sometimes includes contact info
• First used on urbandictionary in 2007
• (Comment: For sex-industry people may not be photos but might be contact info)

Reason for the talk

• People are sharing more pictures and other personal information than ever.
  • Not just for world but peer group
• Solution has to be more realistic than "never take naked photos or otherwise do anything else that could ever get online ever."

Different flavors of revenge porn

• Celebrity sex tape
• Scorned ex who distributes tapes to world or to friends
• Faux revenge professional porn
• The Revenge Porn threat (blackmail) "Do what I want or I'll release the photos

4 Cases

• Lena Chen (formerly of Sex and the Ivy blog)
  • Outed in photos by disgruntled ex
• Kim Kardashian (Public celebrity)
• Carrie Prejean (Miss California)
  • Carrie Prejean was outed as revenge for homophobia... but still was outed and it was still revenge
• Jason Fortuny (with a twist)
  • Posted respondents to his "violent craigslist" prank
  • Imagined he was in the clear but wound up losing court battle

Maria Diaz asked: Why do outed celebrities' seem to suffer less career-wise (but not suffer less personally)

• Guess: Probably papparazi influence

Question: Why the market for humiliated/revenge-upon-ed wives, husbands?

• Opportunity to look down on someone
  • "At least I don't have naked photos of me..."
• Eroticizing shaming/prudery
• Justifying/viewing "object lesson" participation
• How people think about women (has to do with why it's almost always women.)
• Not much stigma for men because (no-sex class moment here) it's expected that men will "debase" themselves. It might happen that they're outed but it's not "news."

Question: With everyone growing up with phonecams, etc do you think it'll ever reach a point where someone won't have to resign or won't be hired if outed?

• Probably so. There's often little lasting damage now
• There is a control issue. Sex bloggers (e.g. Lena Chen) who post their own photos still felt hurt and betrayed when an partner does it against their wishes

Maria: Problem with Jason Fortuny and other revenge/stalking cases is there were, or are, no real laws.

Point: Revenge porn ought to be treated as internet stalking
Downside: law enforcement may not be prepared/motivated to enforce stalking in the first place

Point: saturation of millions of "yeah I did that too" takes power away from straight-up revenge. Saturation doesn't protect in Fortuny-type "craigslist respondent" outings

Point Saying "If you have to do it... lock it down, get "collateral," is implicitly agreeing it's wrong. Saying "it's the worst thing" is only an issue if it's really the worst thing!

Possible "fight fire with fire" Strategy:

• Cuts both ways
• Out people who post revenge porn.
• Saturation may protect victims (I mean, at some point it's going to become "so what") but it's unlikely to protect perpetrators.
• At some point in the future we'll be blazé about being naked on the internet...
• But! At no point are we ever likely to be unconcerned about assholes who out people.

Learn something new every day.

At dinner at the Sex 2.0 conference I learned from Bad Influence Girl, who writes sex-toy reviews and erotic reveries, that...

"Female condoms," the kind of sleeves that are inserted vaginally instead of rolled onto the penis as with condoms for men, are cooler than I'd been led to believe.

• First, they're great for women who's partners have difficulty getting or maintaining erections. That would include those who loose steam while putting on condoms, sure, but also for those who have difficulty getting or maintaining full erections at all.
• Next, they're nice because they make initial entry, the kind involving a lot of nice, cooperative bumping and sliding and aligning when you're not using your hands, feel more natural.
• Oh yeah, and most of them are polyurethane or nitrile polymer instead of latex, which is not only great for people with real latex allergy-allergies, but for people who's skin is irritated by that kind of squeaky friction you get even when you use lube.

Anyway, that's actually pretty cool to hear about. The operative language about condoms in general, and condoms for women in particular, is that the language used to discuss them is often highly... operational. Yes, they give women control, especially in the sense of women who's partners selfishly refuse to use condoms themselves. And yes they provide roughly the same protection regular condoms to (more in the case of so-called "bikini condoms" since they offer more protection from skin-to-skin transmission of, say, perineal or scrotal herpes; some of the earlier versions provided less protection; like regular condoms they can be difficult to learn to use properly.)

But... BadInfluence wasn't talking about the pragmatics, she was talking about what made them more enjoyable, for her, than male condoms.

Your mileage may vary but if you use condoms with a second form of contraception and, especially, if you or your partner has erection problems, you might enjoy checking them out.

I've been meaning to mention this video from the National Sexuality Resource Center called "How to Have the Best Sex of Your Life after Fifty." It's an interview with sex educator Karen Forsythe from Second Wind, a sex site for sexually active men and women ages 50 and up.

I can't embed the interview here but you can go see for yourself.

Notable Forsythe quotes:

"Get away from the idea of "intercourse" as the biggest kahuna in the world because it's not. At our age intercourse becomes only one of several options you can have."

"You're going to get laid for the rest of your life."

And since, by the way, you are going to get laid for the rest of your life (if I don't get that point across I'm not doing my job!) you ought to check out Second Wind. It's a cool site whatever your age.

Comic by Modern Hooker. Used with permission from the artist.

I love this comic. It just says what ought to be official policy. If, and only if, sex-work isn't going to go away using all the methods available of course... oh wait! Making it illegal doesn't seem to make it safe. In fact, instead, since sex-workers can't call the police, or even solicit orders from the chief of police, or even collaborate on street safety without risking running afoul of RICO anti-racketeering statutes, or even having _all their property summarily confiscated if they show up on police radar at all.

Another image, though, from her "borrow" page

Image by Modern Hooker. Appears to be freely postable.

Her blog over at Wordpress is pretty sharp too.

I'm really looking forward to attending the second Sex 2.0 conference in the Washington, D.C. area early next month. Here's the press release.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - April 27, 2009. Now in our second year, Sex 2.0, a one-day unconference, will take place on May 9, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Sex 2.0 will focus on the intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality. How is social media enabling people to learn, grow, and connect sexually? How is sexual expression tied to social activism? Does the concept of transparency online offer new opportunities or present new roadblocks — or both? Sex 2.0 is an unconference, which means that sessions will be informal conversations organized by people attending the event. Session leaders with some knowledge in a subject area facilitate conversations among the participants.

Sessions will include: “Internet Advocacy for Sexual Freedom” with Ricci Joy Levy of the Woodhull Foundation; “Polyamory in Media’s Spotlight” with Anita Wagner; “Craigslist Red, Craigslist Blue: Why we should dismantle the “internet red light district” with Melissa Gira Grant and Joanne McNeill; “Kick Ass Twitter Apps” with Cunning Minx; “Revenge Porn” with Maria Diaz; and “Sex Writing Beyond Erotica, Beyond Porn” with Jack Murnighan, Nerve.com editor-at-large. The keynote speaker will be Nikol Hasler, creator of the Midwest Teen Sex Show (http://midwestteensexshow.com). A complete list of sessions may be viewed at: http://sex20con.com/2009-schedule/sessions/

Sex 2.0 will be held in a Washington, D.C. hotel. (To ensure everyone’s privacy, location information will be email once you are registered). It will offer five conference rooms, a lounge (with free WiFi), vendor area as well as space for various sex-positive outreach groups to set up informational displays and tables.

The event is managed by volunteers and funded by sponsors. We are pleased to have SEXTOY.com as our presenting sponsor this year. SEXTOY.com has been focusing on building a relationship within the blogger community with the recent start-up of its sex toy reviewer program. SEXTOY.com is honored to be the official sponsor for Sex 2.0 and looks forward to a mutually rewarding relationship with the blogger Community. Two SEXTOY.com associates will be attending Sex 2.0 this year: Erik Van Riper and Domina Doll; who both look forward to meeting everyone, attending the talks and participating in discussions. Sex 2.0 is also pleased to have community sponsor Bound Not Gagged (www.boundnotgagged.com), hospitality sponsor Kimberleecline.com and technology sponsor PosAlt.com supporting this years conference.

While the event itself is on Saturday, May 9, there are participant-organized meetups, outings, and parties being planned for Friday night and Saturday evening, as well as a Sunday brunch. For more information, visit the Sex 2.0 website at www.sex20con.com or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/sex20con.

Source: Press Release

The workshops all look interesting. Some of the ones I'm particularly looking forward to include "The Evolution and Democratization of Sex Writing," "Gender & Technology: How technology influences hegemonic sexual awareness and vice versa," "Sex Writing Beyond Erotica, Beyond Porn." And obviously, and especially, "Internet Famous but Conference Shy?"

If you're going to be there I look forward to either meeting you or seeing you again.

I found some interesting referring pages in my server log this evening that link to not just one but two posts. I'm not sure how significant it is but it looks like the editors of the New York Times online edition have added Real Adult Sex to their Blogrunner news aggregator which in turn generates related links to news items on their main site.

Screen dump by Flickr user figleaf (hey, that's me!) Posted under a Creative Commons license.

I'm not sure what it means but it was a heck of a shock to see a referrer that said just "www.nytimes.com!" Anyway, for approximately the same reason I rubberneck at the big buildings in New York and say "golleeey, lookie thar" I've stuck a screen dump of the NYT topics page below "continue reading..." (If it happens again I'll send a copy of the screen dump to my mom.)

Wow, two cool new developments for my blog.

First, I got to be a guest Wise Guy (this week's "straight married guy") at Em & Lo's Sex. Love. And Everything in Between (emphasis theirs)

Advice from three of our guy friends. This week they answer the following: “Does sleeping with a guy on a first date really ruin my chances for a future relationship with him? What if it’s obvious we really like each other, the chemistry’s great, we have a lot in common, and we’re both horny?”

...

Straight Married Guy (Figleaf): I don’t think first-date sex together ruins your chances but it does change them.  You know the critical little “voice in your ear” that says “Hold off: good girls shouldn’t ruin their ‘reputations,’” even when you’d rather not wait?  Men get that too.  Only ours says “Go for it now: losers never get another chance.” Neither “voice” is telling the truth but they can have an effect anyway.  Sometimes when we have sex right away the social pressure those “voices” represent get in the way of everything else we might feel about each other. So for both men and women I think it’s worth it to wait at least for the rest of your feelings catch up. And since when did horny have a shelf-life anyway?  Even waiting a few days (three days, not three dates) gives you both time to talk, a chance to take showers and sleep on it in your own beds, a time to decide what you really want instead of what you think you should do, and… time to get your respective bedrooms tidy and kitchens stocked for intimate guests.

*I* said it here.

I'll be in their wise-guy rotation every month or two.

Oh, and by the way, I was at the original Babeland store the other week killing time while one of my children was taking a carpentry class at a nearby school. After looking at all their hardware I sat down and started thumbing through books on their shelves. As you probably know Babeland sells a lot of sex toys so at random I pulled down a book that said Sex Toy. It was cool, informative, and matter-of-fact. I hadn't registered the authors when I picked up the book but turns out it was by... Em & Lo! If I feel awkwardly self-conscious plugging a bit of my writing on their site I don't at all mind plugging their site, or books.

I'm not dead sure about the world of texting and tweets but I do need a place to mention cool posts I ought to blog about. So, prompted in part by this post by Calico, I'm going to try doing that on my spanking new Twitter account. I'll try self-referencing this post first. If that doesn't work then I'll probably just tweet about what I'm cooking.

Image from the Scarleteen website.

Excellent news! Scarleteen, by far the largest and best sex-education site for young people, finally has 501(c)3 non-profit status... which means that donations to Scarleteen are now, finally, deductible for those who pay federal taxes in the United States.

Technically tax-deductibility shouldn't matter, right? It's either a good cause or it isn't (in this case it's a very good cause) and so why fret about giving? Well, maybe it doesn't for you personally, especially if you can't give more than $100, or $25, or $10, or $5 anyway, and especially if like gazillions of other people you file 1040-EZ tax forms and therefore don't itemize your deductions anyway.

But here's the thing: it *does* matter for businesses that already *do* the equivalent of itemizing. It matters to other non-profit organizations that are themselves limited to granting funds to other non-profits. And, probably most relevant to you if you work for someone else: it matters to employers who have agreed to match employee contributions.

And it matters *particularly* this month because an institutional donor that's willing to match up to $3,000 worth of contributions made to Scarleteen in February. That means if you donate this month your contribution will be doubled. And if you donate through your employer your contribution will be *quadrupled!*

You can always just go to the Help Sustain Scarleteen page and make a donation. (I just did that and it worked great.)

But see also

• Do You Give a Buck About Sex Education?, and
• Double Dollar Valentines for Scarleteen

So anyway, Scarleteen -- a great cause and now tax deductable. What's not to like?

P.S. If you've got a blog or otherwise use social media you can also help support Scarleteen by spreading the word.

P.P.S I didn't notice this earlier but with donations over $75 you can receive a signed copy of the highly-recommended young adult sexuality guide, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College, by Scarleteen founder Heather Corinna.

Have I said enough good things about the cartoonist xkcd lately? H's got lot of insight into both the details but also the absurdity of the way we think about sex. And while today's comic is a great illustration of the principle I can't really repost it here -- it's too big to fit on the page and too intricate to shrink without making it unreadable. But check it out anyway. It's about the silly first-base, second-base baseball euphemisms that... I think might have made more sense in, like, the 1950s when people really didn't do a lot more than kiss ("first base") do breast play ("second") rub each other's genitals ("third") and have intercourse ("home run.") Nowadays, as the comic makes clear it's a lot less, well, clear.

I love the bonus punchline he adds for when you hover the mouse over the image: "I once got to 'second base' with a basketball player. She was so confused." That kind of sums it up. (Have I mentioned the problems I have with using the word "scoring" as a euphemism for men "getting lucky?" Or, for that matter, how much I dislike "getting lucky" as a euphemism for "scoring?")

Xkcd's previous comic is a nice one too, with a wonderfully egregious relationship pun.

I'm not sure if he considers himself a male sex blogger but since I think he's a good one I'm adding him to my blogroll.

Image from Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Cool blogs I think are worth a look at, that may not appear as often in blogrolls as this blog does.

There are lots, actually -- if you look in the new, unsorted area of my blogroll you'll find lots of greater and lesser sites, almost all of which I read and enjoy regularly.

1) Freethinker of notes of a freethinker is a good one. His intro says

Raised a Muslim in Lahore, I'm a freethinker against organized religion and social hierarchies, a radical feminist, a social anarchist, an antiestablishmentarian - revolutionary to the core. Apart from that, I'm a daytime student, a home-maker, and an avid reader and food lover though with limited resources.

Following links on his site, from his blogroll and especially from his commenters is pretty cool too.

2) Britni Danielle's Oh My God, That Britni's Shameless is pretty good too. A fun combination of insightful philosophizing, fashion commentary, product reviews, and self-photography, current events, as well as the ups and downs of life, love, sex, and relationships when you're still living close to your parents.

3) JSS of Into Temptation is still a new blogger, at least on this site, but I thought he got off to a good start with the question

Where are the male hetero sex bloggers? Too busy whacking off to Internet porn to actually write about it?

4) Lisa Wade and Gwen Sharp's Sociological Images is a great resource not only for ideas for posts but just... ideas, period, about the way we (intentionally or not) collectively present ourselves to each other. Oh, and it turns out they've also got a YouTube channel, Sociological Images: The Big Picture for videos.

Another nice male sex-blogger is 13 Messages. I only discovered his blog the other day but it's nice to have company.

5) I like Dr. Kate of Gynotalk a lot too. Good, generally more social than medical answers to interesting questions? What's not to like?

6) Hedonistic Pleasureseeker has a lot to say about life, love, sex, single-parenting, work, home remodeling, and hard-core views-of-an-insider apocalyptic financial analysis presented with wonderfully gonna-be-retro-someday fashion** sense.

[** 7) The question isn't why do I call out two women bloggers for paying attention to fashion. The question is why don't more men do so? The only male blogger I read who focuses primarily on male fashion do's and don'ts is Magnificent Bastard. Monk of Twisted Monk occasionally pitches in as well. --fl]

AlwaysArousedGirl says it's not enough to just have an RSS/Newsread on your blog so that your readers can use blog subscriber/aggregator like Google Reader or NewGator to keep up with you. It's also important to use the "whole post" setting in your feeds and not just teasers, snippets, or headlines-only.
Photo by Flickr user orangejack.
Used under a Creative Commons license.

Here's how she puts it.

After ages of reading blogs through my blog roll only and adding blogs by hand (and very reluctantly), I finally switched over to Google Reader.  This makes writing the Tuesday Fleshbot Sex Blog Roundup ever so much easier for me.

At least, it’s easier for me if you do one very small, very simple thing.  May I beg you to publish a full feed?  Please don’t tease me with an abbreviated feed or worse, just the title of your post.

“But I want people to click over and read on the blog itself,” you might be thinking, and I thought the same too for a long time.   But the fact of the matter is that many people won’t click over.  Blame it on time constraints, blame it on laziness, blame it on the momentum one acquires when paging through the dozens if not hundreds of items that land in one’s feed reader daily.

It doesn’t really matter why people won’t leave the comfort of their reader.  A sizable portion won’t, and that leaves you with a decision to make in regard to potential readers who like you well enough to add you to their feeds:  If they’ve already made the decision not to click over, would you prefer that they read your whole post or just a fraction of it?  If your only concern is how many hits your blog gets, then by all means continue to publish only a partial feed.  But if your concern is having people read your words, for fuck’s sake publish the whole thing.

She said it here.

She's right. It's pretty important to publish that whole feed and not just teasers. If I can read your whole post in my newsreader then... well... I *do!* I almost never just breeze past a non-teaser post.

It's not a trivial point either -- if you rely only on tools like StatCounter or AWStats or Google Analytics to track visits to your site you're almost certainly missing a lot of traffic. When Google Reader scans your site it shows up as just a single visit whether there are two subscribers to your feed or two million! (Note: I don't think many blogs have either one or one million subscribers but you know what I mean.) All I know is that one day when I was spending a little time hand-washing my server logs I discovered I had more than *twice the number of readers I thought!*

Chances are pretty good that if you've got a teaser-only feed you don't have as many subscribers... but you may not have as many *readers* either. Just sayin'

---

Now, that said, if you're viewing this post on a newsreader you'll see a little link saying "Continue reading..." That might seem a little hypocritical considering I'm asking everyone to do just the opposite. On the other hand, since I only use the "Continue reading..." for the photos I sometimes post, and because those photos are usually only incidental to the content of the posts, *and* because that created problems for some people who read this blog via newsreader in public places, I feel that's an ok exception. It's fine if you do likewise. But please leave your generally wonderful prose out where *everybody* can find it.

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Quick tip: since about 85% of the blogs in the world seem to be hosted on Blogger/Blogspot, and since about 80% of the teaser-only feeds I read are on Blogger/Blogspot, here's a quick how-to to change your feeds to full text. (If you're on a different blogging system that defaults to teaser feeds, and you're not sure how to switch to full-text feeds, *and you actually want to* then drop me a line in email or comments telling me what blogging software you use I'll do what I can to track down a how-to for your system.)

Oh, a quick pre-postscript: If you make the switch and let me know I'll post your URL in a thank-you.

For Blogger/Blogspot blogs

1) Go to your Blogger.com dashboard (blogger.com/home)
2) Click "Settings" in your "Manage Blogs" area
3) Click "Site Feed" in the row of links under the "Settings" tab
4) Select "Full" from the "Allow Blog Feeds" list
5) Click "Save Settings"

Thanks!

While cruising this week's Half-nekkid Thursday entries around the HNT-o-sphere (hey, Osbasso says HNT has made it into Urban Dictionary.com!) I ran across a cool, clever, sexy
Photo by 13 Messages.straight male sex blogger at 13 Messages. He does great, creative self-photography, has a nice wry, dry sense of humor, solid erotic sensibilities that don't seem to involve sexually deprecating either himself or others, and for extra credit although it sounds like he worries about it sometimes he also seems to really care about being a good dad, a good son, a good grandson, and a good partner.

When I started this blog there really weren't many men doing this. And so to paraphrase the old Greatful Dead bumper sticker, I might not have been the best at what I do but I was the only one doing it. Good to see other men picking up the slack.

Oh, and not to slight anyone else who's doing it too -- it just happens I had an epiphany last night that while I wish more men were into taking a... well... hard look at the cool things about heterosexuality (as opposed to just repeating what we're taught to say about it) I haven't actually been promoting those who do. But that's about later. For now, if on average you like the more erotic side of this blog you'll probably also enjoy 13 Messages.

Over on the wonderful sex-ed site Scarleteen.com authors CJ Turett and Heather Corinna have posted an in-depth, non-gender-specific article called "Let's Get Metaphysical: The Etiquette of Entry."

Vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, placing fingers inside a vagina or anus, fellatio (blowjobs), in plenty of ways with cunnilingus (oral sex for women), and even kissing with your tongue are all some ways we might enter someone else's body or have someone else enter our own.

All text quoted in this post are from here.

First of all it's just so cool that they're calling it "entry," which locates things in the person entered instead of "penetration," which tends to emphasize the person doing the entering. And with that in mind here's a clip on the section about why they think it's important to deconstruct entry in the first place.

* The person whose body is being entered is usually at a higher risk of injury or sexually transmitted infections, because it is their genital tissue which is most likely to wind up with small abrasions, fissures or micro-tears. For any partner involved, when there is bodily entry going on, the stakes are higher than they are with, say, dry sex, or rubbing someone's breasts or penis.

* The person whose body is being entered is often the person more likely to experience any pain or discomfort, often due to things like nerves, inadequate arousal or lubrication, or an aggressive or over-eager partner.

* If we’re talking about an instance of sex and a combination of body and parts that could possibly result in pregnancy, it’s the person whose body is being entered who is at risk of pregnancy.

* Many people have had or do have trauma when it comes to others entering their bodies, whether due to the forced entry of rape, having experienced pain in the past with entry, medical abuses, childbirth experiences, or experiences with a previous partner who disrespected or disregarded limits, boundaries, or desire. Both the physical body and the mind remember pain, so previous pain -- be that physical and/or emotional -- can make entry scary for some people or trigger some challenging or painful emotions regarding previous traumatic experiences.

* We have a lot of cultural baggage that says only women get entered and only men do the entering, or that any kind of entry is a kind of violation or powerplay. For some men, a lot of homophobia can also be tied up into them being entered, as entrance has historically been constructed as a passive or more feminine role. Balancing our desire or interests with our community, family, or religious values—as well as what we’ve been taught from other places—is not always an easy task.

* Some people may have gender identity issues with either being entered or entering someone's body. The ways we feel about our own bodies and body parts, and whether those align with what our partners may see about us or understand about our identities, can sometimes be confusing. Regardless of our gender, we may also have preferences about what kind of sexual roles we see as acceptable or desirable for ourselves.

* Some people also have shame tied up into the insides of their body, or the fluids or substances with which contact can be made, particularly when entry is involved.

And from a section on entry, personal space, and boundaries

This might sound a little hokey, but entrance into another body — whether you are inviting it for yourself or someone else is inviting you inside of them — is often a profound moment of connection. While all sexual activity, regardless of whether or not there is entry present, is an opportunity for this sort of connection, physically crossing into and entering into another body can be highly emotional for a lot of people. But it’s easy to forget or overlook that when you’re busy thinking about everything else, like how to physically go about it or how you’re performing or whether or not you’re “doing it right”.

And a historically-critical from a section called "A Vagina is Not a Sock, and Other Helpful Hints"

With any bodily orifice, we're not talking about something that is passive or just lying around. Body parts exist within relationship to other body parts, within relationship to complex bodily systems, reactions, and interactions. The mouth is active and full of muscles. The vagina is a muscle. The anal sphincters, anus, and rectum are muscles. And with any of those parts, if we're really paying attention rather than going into our own heads or focusing only on our own bodies, we can feel when they are really are opening up to us and when they are not.

And, a fairly big one, from the section on patriarchal, feminist, and heteronormative constructions of entry

Heterocentrism also makes it really easy to skew this conversation to only be about heterosexually-identified people who were assigned male at birth (and who still identify as male) with people who were assigned female at birth (and who still identify as female). Heterocentrism can mean that we often default to viewing penis-in-vagina sex as “real” sex, and anything else as somehow less or not valid even though they really are mighty similar and have some very important things in common.

On distinguishing between body signals, body language, and verbal consent

Lest we unintentionally send an inaccurate message, this is not to say that if the bodily signals are there (erection, lubrication, a flushed face or chest, increased swelling around the genitals, increased heart rate—all of which can be signals of arousal) then all systems are a go and you have complete liberty to do as you may with your partner. Nope. All of the signals need to be in alignment, and indicators of bodily readiness can only take on meaning in the presence of verbal consent. Consent is not simply the absence of NO; it’s an active statement of yes, and a freely given and enthusiastic YES at that.

And finally from a section on the language of entry itself

The wording and construct of “penetration” can imply that one person is pushing through or into another, often by overcoming resistance. In some contexts, that word can deny or make invisible the fact that while, indeed, sometimes that can be how an encounter goes – particularly when we’re talking about rape rather than consensual partnered sex – that’s not actually what is going on when sex is wanted by all partners, and everyone is emotionally present and bodies are fully engaged.

...

Instead of saying "receptive," when we talk about the partner who is being entered, we might say that a partner and their body are welcoming, yielding, inviting, taking in, enfolding, embracing. Heck, even "entry" is a bit limited. We're short of language for so much of what we're talking about here in large part because for such a long time the ways that we’ve talked about sex were (and in many ways still are) all caught up in the politics of separateness, inequality, of conquering, and of power-over rather than power shared.

I'm sure it sounds like I've just quoted the whole thing. But Heather and CJ have put a *lot* of work into this. Oh, and incidentally, except for a few posts by people like Bitchy Jones, most of the work on... I dunno... call it the philosophy of entry/penetration was done back in the 1970s. And a lot has changed since then. Anyway, it's good stuff and I highly recommend it.

Reminder from (mostly) political Blue Gal

Image from original B.A.D. instigator Skippy the Bush KangarooTuesday, February 3 is Blogroll Amnesty Day. Old timers know that this holiday has a rather sullen history, but now it is a happy occasion: On February 3, bloggers are invited to post links to five blogs you like, that have smaller traffic than your own. It's a great celebration and a time to discover new blogs and link them and stuff. As I said last year, "not to get all mushy here, but do you know how fucking great it is to be here in the blogosphere? Take a moment. Take it in." Spread some linky love.

She said it here.

I think it's another one of those great ideas where it *doesn't matter* how large or small you are. Four years ago my blog had maybe ten visits a day... even *Google* didn't know about me... but I still managed to find a few then-isolated but still cool that were less visited. If I'd known about Blog Amnesty Day back then I could still have made five new friends. This blog is a little busier now, and I follow, and I'm followed by, a lot more bloggers now but the principle still applies. Barring those with huge Rolodexes or the kind of pre-existing cache that comes when celebrities launch their blogs with the help of with pre-existing publicity agents, we all built our traffic link by link. So again, large, small, or in between, Blogroll Amnesty Day is a great way to pay it forward or pay it back.

Start looking for five smaller blogs (this is a sex and politics blog but B.A.D. isn't limited to a single genre) that you wish more people knew about and mark your calendars for this year's Blogroll Amnesty Day: Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2009.

(Thanks for the head's up, Bluegal.)

I got a note from Anastasia of Sex, Life, and Frilly Bits (a.k.a. Chaos Noir and sometimes Sexualité.) There was a domain registration mixup and she's had to change URLs. If you were following her before you can find her at http://chaosnoir.typepad.com/. If you didn't know about her you can take a look now -- she's got a lot to say about sex, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the avoidance of censorship, the contradictions in sex work and porn, what it's like to be an Australian woman of Greek heritage. You can also find a link to Lucrezia Magazine, her arts and erotica site.

Cool. Someone found my old post from 2006, Since when is "regression to the mean" a medical emergency? and posted it to a discussion-forum site I was unfamiliar with, Uppitywomen.org. The discussion's pretty interesting.

One thing about that original post. I had already gotten that a lot of what we assume to be gendered imbalance is actually situational, but while I was pretty clearly moving in the direction of recognizing the no-sex class paradigm I also pretty clearly hadn't gotten there yet. Consequently it's still bound up in the importance of consent when that's necessary to sexual freedom but completely insufficient.

If I was to rewrite that post today I'd make a bigger point about the interrelatedness of the freedoms of consent and initiative, and I'd write more about how the imperative that men always initiate skews into no-sex class supporting perception that men are always "ready" for sex and women are always less sure.

When, in fact, if they're *not* ready they just don't initiate... and if they never *encounter* initiation let alone initiation when they're not ready then bingo, no experience of *men* needing to be able to exercise the right to accept or decline that we've historically seen as "gatekeeping" or "consent." And, consequently, no experience of the interrelatedness, or *importance* of *both* the right to initiate and the right to consent. For *everybody.*

Here's the kind of blogger you don't run across every day. Freethinker notes of a freethinker, a (perhaps more necessarily than most) anonymous feminist Anarchist from Pakistan.

Recent posts:

On feminism

I live in a country where feminism is only about working for the right to education and careers, 'condemning' violence against women, and reforming the legal system. I live in a country where my novel notions of equality as absence of socially enacted difference in value-laden constructs of femininity and masculinity alienate everyone, especially the 'Muslim feminists'.

Read the quote in context here.

On Anarchy

Just realized that my last post is the first one that mentions Anarchism. Because there are few in my country who know of any other meaning of 'anarchy' than chaos, I thought some explanation was called for by way of clarification.

Read all about it here.

And on putting it all together with insights into the way language, in this case names, enforces social order.

Alderson Warm-Folk teases out the meanings of the patriarchal naming system of the West. But then she asks what an egalitarian naming system might look like. The traditional Arab way of naming (their 'onomatology' as it's called in academics) came to my mind: I could refer to you as ‘Mother of’, ‘Daughter of’, ‘Father of’, and ‘Son of’, or by a popular ‘Kuniyat’ that describes some special social role or even an eccentricity of yours. And you could have more than one names. That is, it wasn't much of naming 'system', which makes sense because the Arabs were a nomadic people and had no need of a single ‘official’ name.

But that brings me to question the idea of a 'naming system' itself.To me, names represent your particular place in the patriarchal social order, assigning you your social identity based on sex, ethnicity, religion, sect, caste and even class. They are just another aspect of civilization's premium on social control and norm enforcement (check out this story and a commentary here). And in a city like Karachi where there is a lot of communal tension, your given name sweeps you into unwanted identity politics.

So in conclusion, naming systems have way too much cultural baggage for me to care about them. If egalitarian means oppression-free, then names would not be of much significance.

She said it here.

On that last point, the only other time I was engaged my partner wrestled with what last name to use when she was married. There was no way she was going to take my last name. And it irked her that the alternative was keeping her father's last name instead. She thought hard about taking her mom's last name... but brooded that that only pushed things back a generation to her *grandfather's* last name.

Only a few months later she broke off our engagement and moved to the other side of the country to live with a woman from rural Georgia. She and the other woman eventually married instead, but, their marriage not being legally recognized each wound up keeping her own last name.

A few years later I worked with a woman from Pakistan. I remember her saying something similar to Freethinker about Urdu, which she'd grown up speaking. I may be mangling this a bit but she said, approximately, that family relationships are built right into a lot of personal pronouns.

Oh, see also her his take on the consequences of being a woman in her society's version of the no-sex class. On the one hand women are expected to accommodate their partners sexually; on the other hand abortion is denied as a way to make women "pay" for sex.

I hate it when those who call themselves progressive and don't believe in women's segregation are comfortable condemning teenage girls to pregnancy and childcare because they feel that it's in the interests of sexual morality : if they can get abortion every time they get pregnant, they'll never learn to keep their legs together; they should pay for the wanton sex they have. Doesn't this emphasis on a girl's sexuality hark back to the medieval morality of segregation?

So for these progressives who think that I am being unreasonable with my radically pro-choice stance, I am putting down my thoughts on why I think that getting knocked up is not a girl's fault. When you put it in the context of patriarchy, the decision to have sex is not a decision of free will, and it can be argued that it’s not easy for women to avoid sex. Even without rape, feminists believe that the choice isn’t really there for a woman. Here are a few reasons why...

...

So really, a woman should never have to 'pay' for 'having too much sex' unless the society is completely revamped. Even so, you are left with the debate of whether sex, any sex, ought to be punished.

Definitely an interesting perspective. Check it out here.

Cool insights.

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Update: Following links into and out of her blog I'm finding all sorts of other seriously interesting men and women in Pakistan and India.

Update: Mea culpa: Freethinkr informs me he's a man not a woman. I read "home-maker" in his profile and, even though I'm a home-maker myself, I made multiple false assumptions.

Four interesting things about Scott Meyer, the comic author of Basic Instructions: 1) he starts by writing the sort of dry instructional prose found in "business etiquette" guides, employee handbooks, and dating magazines and embellishes them with often-self-deprecating cartoon dialogue; 2) he employs a deceptively simple-looking drawing style, based on an old photo-tracing technique once popular in low-budget print shops, that's almost necessarily unflattering to its subjects.

Here's an example...

Image copyright © 2008, Scott Meyer, www.basicinstructions.net, used without permission but hoping for forgiveness.

3) since updating his website software lately he now gets comments from readers. And, like any accommodating instructional designer, responds.

Here's an example...

Image copyright © 2009, Scott Meyer, www.basicinstructions.net, used also without permission but still hoping for forgiveness.

4) It can take up to 24 hours to realize he's not just consistently hilarious, he's capable of astonishingly dry sarcasm about stereotyping.

You can order his new, ought-to-outsell-Garfield-if-there's-justice-in-the-world book, order t-shirts and other paraphernalia including the awesome custom drawn "infini-t" portrait shirts, and see actual photos of Meyer and his partner here.

Anyway, if you haven't spotted his comics in your local alt-weekly you can get them fresh from the source.

I'm tickled pink to have been nominated in the Hottest Daddy Blogger category in the 2009 Blogger's Choice Awards. If you'd be willing to follow the link and put in a vote for me I'd be very grateful.

Some of the competition is very good as well. If you'd like to check them out, or if you'd just like a chance to browse a list of sites with a high concentration of potentially hot daddy-bloggers you'll find a bunch of them here.

Also, while I think the Hottest Daddy Blogger nomination is really appropriate (I'm not just a dad I'm a *stay-at-home* dad) I've also been nominated for a Best Political Blogger award. I think there are other, better political bloggers out there but given why I blog about sex in the first place I'd like to thank whoever was kind enough to nominate me in that category as well.

Thanks!

Maymay of Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed, is starting, approximately, a porn site with his sometime partner Eileen. While one might think there were already enough of those in the world his reasons for starting this one are persuasive. (All emphasis his.)

So, here’s the problem: There is not enough porn wherein submissive men are the erotic subject matter.

If you’ve read even a little bit of this blog, you’re probably already well-versed in many of my rants about how paltry the available porn is for submissive men like me (and, by extension, dominant women like Eileen). But the problem is actually two fold. One problem is, of course, that there’s simply an insanely disturbing general lack of the stuff. In fact, it’s so bad that if you Google for the three words “male submission art,” you actually get female submission links littering the first page of results.

This is actually even worse if you go actively hunting for porn with the hopes of finding erotica depicting men who are submissive. Instead, you’re much, much more likely to find erotica depicting women who are dominant. This is actually a major nuisance for a lot of people—including many submissive men, I might add.

Arguably even more frustrating that that, however, is that what male submissive porn is out there is total shit relative to the porn available for other sorts of orientations. In such erotica (unless it’s gay imagery, of course) men are portrayed as impotent, ugly creatures. That is not sexy. It’s also insulting.

He said it here.

The (already, big surprise, not-"work-safe") site is Male Submission Art. The mission statement on their submission-guidelines page says their aim is

...to challenge stereotypes of erotica as it relates to imagery of gender-biased domination and submission. In our experience, such erotic imagery almost always contains images of beautiful female submission or “pathetic” male submission. Instead, we want to showcase beautiful imagery of masculine submissive subjects.

Read more, plus find out how to submit entries if you're interested, here.

Since I reiterated my own frustrations the other day I'm obviously pleased to hear about this site. And I'm pleased not out of some sort of MRA-like plea that "men can be erotic too" but because interest *already exists* and the dysfunctionally, comically-stereotypically gendered nature of porn insures that that interest is *underserved.*

Since I appreciate but don't share May and Eileen's *erotic* enthusiasm for submissive men I'll point out another distinction Eileen alludes to in several of her captions, but especially a comparatively modest one of a young man who's just sitting on a bench counting his toes: it's not that the man has to be actively (note that word "actively") submissive, instead it can be enough for him simply *not to be dominant!*

For all the (entirely appropriate, justified, and important) attention paid to encouraging agency and non-passive consent for women it's also important for men to get over the "no-sex" class paradigm-driven notion that (hetero) sex doesn't happen unless men take the active role. (Even in "Playgirl" style "porn for women" men are portrayed as *actively* presenting themselves... submitting themselves in ways that initiate by *actively* inviting the observer rather than leaving space where the observer can identify as the initiator her- or himself.)

Quick mini vocabulary review: this might be a bit off-topic but since a lot of heterosexuals, men and women, *like* it when the man takes the lead I ought to make it clear that, as in ballroom dancing, one person initiating ("let's dance," "what are you doing later") isn't synonymous with that same person "leading" once the dance... or other activity... begins. Nor is initiating or leading the same as "dominating." Nor does *accepting* an invitation automatically equal to "submitting."

And finally, back to May's, Eileen's and my main point, when it comes to men submission (in either the active, the initiating, or even the BDSM sense) isn't, and shouldn't be, automatically synonymous with pathetic, "effeminate," comical, impotent, or insulting. (Nor, for that matter, need submission automatically imply any of those other things when it comes to women.)

This one's going to be a tough, tough stereotype to overcome, by the way. (It's one place where even mainstream feminism has some catching up to do.) And while it's sort of natural that BDSM folks would be on the cutting edge I think it's important enough that anyone interested in intergender issues can help tackle it.

As times get tougher and as ad revenue dries up I've started noticing increasing numbers of tip jars appearing in the sidebars of bloggers of all genres. I'm not sure how well they work but if you like someone's work and you've got even a couple of bucks to spare I heartily recommend chipping in.

Anyway, while I've never had much ad revenue to begin with (I've experimented a bit with ads but since I'm *in* the "pink ghetto" of sex bloggers but not enough *of* it to feel comfortable hosting ads for porn or adult-equipment sites that's never really been much of a revenue generator) my expenses are low enough that I'm not going to put up a tip jar either. (I'd far, far rather you donate whatever you can to the independent, and excellent sex-education site Scarleteen.)

Instead I'm going to take a tip from Casual Kitchen, a food blog that nicely combines quality food with cost consciousness. The author, Daniel Koontz, invites readers to

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.

He puts this note at the end of each post, here.

I'd like to make the same request. Wheni read posts that inspire me I quote and link to them. If I consistently read them I add them to my blogroll. If you enjoy reading Figleaf's Real Adult Sex, tell somebody. Quote or reference a post, add a link to your blogroll, subscribe to my RSS feed, leave a comment.

If this blog isn't your cup of tea you can still support other bloggers the same way.

Thanks!

"Jeans 020" from my "Sizing Jeans" photoset on Flickr.
Also, why these photos?

Ms Naughty of Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog raises an issue that's dear to my heart

[Note: All links go to pages containing nudity. --fl]

Thanks to The Girl for pointing me in the direction of Erotica Cover Watch. This is a new blog that asks the question: why are only women featured on the covers of erotic books?

It’s a very good point and the topic naturally delves into the whole feminist issue of the male gaze and the continued way that straight women are still considered to be non-visual.

It all comes down to official marketing wisdom which says that women on covers sell and men don’t.

...

I’m glad someone is making a fuss about this. Maybe next year’s Best Women’s Erotica, which is absolutely and utterly aimed at women, should have a guy or a couple on it.

She said it here.

I'm not as diligent about it as I used to be but I got started posting my own photos because I was frustrated that, while it was conventional wisdom that "men are visual and women aren't" it seemed like nobody was even *bothering* to try to make erotic representations of men specifically for heterosexual women. What made it frustrating was the number of women bloggers, then almost exclusively anonymous, who said *they* were frustrated. And it seemed to me (as I've said elsewhere) that since virtually all visual porn was made for straight or gay men, and almost always made *by* men, that nobody was even trying. Men in straight porn are usually featured as either foils (comical, non-threatening) or proxies for the assumed viewer and in almost all cases they're positioned as accessories to women. In gay porn men are at least presented as erotic in their own right but even then the representations were (obviously) still coming from a male perspective. (Incidentally a lot of those anonymous bloggers said they preferred, and could more closely identify with, the activities in gay porn to the stylized hump/thump/dump male antics in straight porn.)

So anyway, since I was a lot more daring in my youth (ok, three or four years ago anyway) I swallowed quite a lot of reluctance and took photos I thought might appeal to, you know, actual straight women. Actually since I didn't really know what that would even mean my main method was trying to avoid what mostly shows up in conventional porn and self-photography. And mostly that seemed to involve photos and poses that created space where the viewer could imagine putting herself instead of being put, of acting instead of just being acted on, of having *agency* instead of subjectivity. (Not that big a leap, actually, since, after all, that's what photos tend to do for men in *their* porn.)

No one was more shocked than I that it hit a chord. It was popular, and since in real life I'm kind of shy and unassuming, a little embarrassing. Web stats suggest some of those photos have become *very* popular with other posters. (Yikes! If I hadn't been anonymous I don't think I could have done it at all! And good thing I'd probably submit a job application to the Obama Transition team!)

I still post photos now although to be honest I feel like I'm losing my touch. I'm also getting pretty restless about my anonymity. And so except for Thursday photos I think I'm slowly winding down. Which is fine -- it looks like people like Ms. Naughty and the folks over at Erotic Cover Watch are taking up the torch.

One last point: whereas I don't think more erotic representations of straight men is especially progress if everyone just winds up being objectified I *do* think it's progress when assumptions based on what stereotypes "want" are broken down. I'd also suggest that what's traditionally made the "objectification" in porn so objectionable has been its highly unilateral, not to mention exclusive ("you're a woman, you're not *supposed* to like it!") nature. And finally, creating erotic imagery that acknowledges *women's* erotic agency (something conventional male-oriented porn decidedly and consistently fails to do) helps break down the really terrible idea that women *don't* have agency of their own... and that consequently their fallow sexuality is available for male appropriation.

Photo by Flickr user bcmacsac1. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Coy Pink of No need to be coy says

I’ve always been slightly annoyed about a certain segment of sex toys out there.
Image from Babeland.com. Click for
(non-affiliate) product info.Animal-themed sex toys, to be precise.  What genius decided that women need or want their sex toys to be modeled after animals?  Do the powers-that-be think if a sex toy is shaped like a bunny or a dolphin it will be more appealing to women?  Do they think it’s easier for a shy lady to purchase a dildo with a face on it rather than one that is more life-like?  Even if that is true, how insulting is that?  All of us silly, giggling girls couldn’t POSSIBLY purchase a realistic looking vibrator, NOOOO…  it must be cute looking! </sarcasm>  I, for one, am not a fan of any toy that resembles an animal.  Apparently, I’m not alone...

She said it here.

Oh, and meanwhile TBK of The Beautiful Kind has remarks along the same lines in her review of a different sex toy. (Emphasis mine.)

I’ve never had anything like this up there before, just normal size dicks and smaller butt plugs. It measures in at 6.5 inches in length, which you wouldn’t think is too bad, but it’s bulky, and I was intimidated. It’s like a tapeworm for Paul Bunyan!

AND it even has a FACE - someone in Germany has a sense of humor…this is a product of Fun Factory, an innovative European sex toy company. I am GROOVING on their funky toy line, let me tell you.

Read her review here.

My cached version of photo from TBK's post.Here's how I think vibrators and similar devices got those cutesy animal looks and faces. I remember reading years ago, from something by, I think, Susie Bright, that animal shapes and/or those unnerving little smiley faces were originally intended to get around laws against "marital aids" in the country they were first manufactured and/or first became popular.

Back when vibrators first started getting popular in America there were basically two kinds, smooth candle-shaped and "Swedish" ones that strapped to your hand. They worked... ok but they really were adapted from tools for old-fashioned body massage.

Oh yeah, and the candle-style ones were available mainly through mall-based "Spencer Gift" type novelty toy stores which, I'm guessing, meant they had to be indirect about their intended use.

Anyway, when the new ones, specifically the highly-iconic Rabbit, from Japan showed up in the early progressive toy stores (the then-independent Good Vibrations had them very early on) it was a revelation for a lot of people. Sure, Japanese modesty standards are very strong but also very different from our so, for instance, they weren't particularly shy to design tools specifically for actual masturbation... but they still put bunny ears and little smileys on them.

And naturally when those non-toy "toys" took off here other manufacturers imitated the designs, bunny-ears or dolphin heads and all, without, I think, wondering *why.* Once manufacturers stopped imitating and started doing their own thing we started getting *really* specific toys like the Rock Chick (not for everyone but *very* effective for some people) or the NJoy and Lelo design lines of vibrators and insertables that are beautiful, very functional, well-crafted and... neither toy nor "realistic imitation" of *any* kind of anatomy whether it's animal, vegetable, genital, or... toddler toys.**

Anyway, that's where I think the little animal effects on a lot of toys came from.

---

A not-irrelevant nerd note: along the same lines of rote imitation of features like bunny ears on popular products, you know how a lot of old "hot rod" race cars were always really jacked up in the back? I grew up in old bootlegger country -- the original "Thunder Road" of ballad and movie fame went through both the town I was born in and the one where I grew up! More than one old-timer car mechanic told me they were jacked up not to improve performance but so that they'd look normal when driven with sometimes hundreds of gallons of illegal booze in the back. And yeah, on days off when the drivers would unload and race them those cars won... but it was the size of engines and skill of the drivers, not the height of the (unloaded) trunks that mattered. Nevertheless, 50 years later the misperception about functionality lingers... as does, evidently, the impulse to keep putting cartoon eyes on Coy's and TBK's sex toys "marital aids" sex and/or masturbation tools.

[** I added that last clause to make it more clear that "cute" and "anatomically correct" aren't the only alternatives. --fl]

Photo by Flickr user ChadScott. Used under a Creative Commons license.

All kinds of people have "Links I Liked" kind of digests of posts they didn't have time to write about in more detail. I think they use some kind of service... maybe De.licious? Anyway, I often have things sitting around my RSS reader until they finally expire so I thought I'd experiment with a hand-rolled version.

1) In "Knowing Best, Doing Good" Laura Agustin of Border Thinking on Migration, Culture, Economy and Sex said

[Christian] Lander takes off the way ‘helping’ makes people feel good about themselves and how they assume that if everyone were to live the way helpers do - making the Right choices - then the world would be Good.  

Read the quote in context here.

See also Agustin's follow-up What's Wrong With Helping, Another example from the world of sex work.

2) In "Why Am I Supposed To Date Older Men, Again? [It Makes Us Laugh]" Megan of Jezebel said

Like most women, most of my dating life, I've dated older boys and men. It's almost what you're supposed to do, right? Men mature more slowly, they're less ready to settle down, they're less self-confident when they're younger. Older man are supposed to be more settled, more confident, more mature, more relationship-ready. Well, I'm 30 and I'm calling bullshit on all those theories. At this point, some of the most fucked-up men, the ones who treated me the worst, were older than me — often a lot older. And maybe I'm getting less mature by the day, but I could give a shit right now if some dude is living in a group house or making no money or thinks fart jokes are hilarious if he's also smart, funny and treats me with the respect and, I'll admit it, deference I'm sort of into right now. And I'm just not getting that from the older guys.

Read the quote in context here.

3) In "Mostly because we need a break from non-stop election stuff" Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon said

Men can like cats nowadays for the same reason that men can find Tina Fey really sexy ---because feminism has loosened the gender bindings of masculinity enough that they can find something other than dumb adoration appealing.  You’re welcome, men.

Read the quote in context here.

4) In "She’s a beauty queen" Sarah of Season of the Bitch said

But what the hell is wrong with us that a simple unretouched photo is enough to set the right wing howling that it’s unfair coverage? What’s wrong with showing a 44-year-old woman’s skin? Do they honestly think someone’s going to decide not to vote for her because they can see her laugh lines?

Read the quote in context here.

5) gURL of sex_ed_blog said

Ever try to masturbate with less than stellar results? You're not alone. Read about one gURL's failed attempts at masturbation.

Read the quote in context here.

Note: She assumes that it's easy for men because everything's right "out front." My experience figuring out how to masturbate was pretty similar to hers. The (perfectly understandable) slip doesn't detract from the familiarity of her version.

6) In "Why Men Cheat" Michelle Cottle of The Plank says

So, yeah, the details of [Peter] Cook's betrayal [of Christie Brinkley] may be more colorful than average, but the motivation behind the betrayal is hardly unusual. No matter how pretty Brinkley is--in fact, perhaps because of how pretty she is--she didn't make poor Peter feel important enough. That was something he just couldn't handle. Which definitely makes him a loser, but, alas, doesn't make him remotely unusual.

Read the quote in context here.

For ruminations on the same general effect see also "A Winning Mentality" by Phila at Echidne of the Snakes and "Testicular Implosion" by Infra at Skin::filter().

Interesting sex-related question at Manic Monday today

Which would you prefer and why? To have every stoplight turn green upon your arrival for the rest of your life or to have one week of the best sex any person ever had?

Read other, mostly non-sex-related questions here.

I read the question at Biscuit, who raises a perfectly sensible (and possibly ominous) concern

A week of mind-blowing sex. Very tempting, but what about the rest of your sex life afterward? Would it pale in comparison and leave you wanting?

She said it here.

Assuming all else would be equal I'd take the green lights.

Regular sex is already pretty nice, and in my experience "mind blowing" sex, while also nice, is sort of overrated. I mean who in his or her right mind says "oh darn it, that last orgasm sucked because it wasn't the best ever" and/or "my partner's last orgasm sucked because it wasn't her/his best ever?"

Anyway, I'd settle for the same old perfectly enjoyable sex for the rest of my life... using some of the time I saved not waiting in traffic! :-)

Note: I'm very much *not* a subscriber to bumper-sticker slogans along the lines of "the worst day X is better than the best day Y." In particular I don't believe "there's no such thing as a bad blowjob/cunnilingus" or *especially* the daft idea that "bad sex is still better than no sex." Since todays' meme isn't about *bad* sex I just don't see any of those slogans applying here.

Laura Agustín of Border Thinking on Migration, Culture, Economy and Sex is a sociologist who's work focuses on legal and illegal immigrants in general, and migrant sex workers in particular, at the interface between NGOs and migrants themselves. She's using her blog, in part, to publish some of her earlier works. Here's an excerpt from "Challenging 'Place:' Leaving Home for Sex."

My example here is migrant women and transsexuals in Europe, but the discourses which construct them as ‘trafficked’ exist all over the world and are being addressed by international bodies.[6] At the time of this writing, the majority of migrant prostitutes in Europe come from the west of Africa, Latin America, eastern Europe and countries of the ex-Soviet Union. While domestic workers have begun to unite across ethnic borders to demand basic rights, sex workers have not, making them impossible to fit into classic migration frameworks, in which associations are formed as an essential step to ‘settling’ down. For a variety of legislative and social reasons, not least of which are the repressive policies of police and immigration all over Europe, prostitutes tend to keep moving, from city to city and from country to country.[7] This itinerant lifestyle creates a particular relationship to ‘place’ that impedes doing the things migrants are ‘supposed’ to do, related to establishing themselves and becoming good (subaltern) citizens (the Roma suffer from the same impediment). While nomadism is found romantic in people who live far away (such as the Bedouin) it tends to be seen as a social problem inside the West.

Read additional insights she brings to the discussion here.

Agustín makes the further point that if tradition in both countries of origin (usually in the 2nd- and 3rd-world), and destination countries (usually in the 2nd- or 1st) make jobs available to women only in the domestic, "caring," and sex industries** then that's... pretty much where they're going to end up in the course of doing what men have done for centuries: emigrate in search of greater economic or social opportunities elsewhere.

This suggests two things where one's obvious and the other ought to be. First, that without shifts away from limiting women, especially at the margins, to tasks that tie them to "home" activities no amount of criminalization of sex work is going to reduce the likelihood of surplus workers winding up in it (whether more or less against their will.) Second, as the quoted passage illustrates, the specific criminalization of sex work complicates the development of networks available to other migrants for "landing" in a place and becoming established -- leaving them perpetually both more displaced and more vulnerable to continuing coercion and exploitation.

Link via Red Spine.

[** I'd add sweatshop piece work which, based on my own childhood experiences with small-scale farming in the middle of the last century, is itself an offshoot of the tendency for the partners of male farmers to process, finish, or package what the male farmer harvests and takes to market. --fl]

Heather Corinna of the sex-ed site Scarleteen, and others, remind us that

September 25th is the last day to submit public comment on the proposed HHS regulations which are not only superfluous, but more importantly, would further limit access to reproductive healthcare (and other healthcare) services in the U.S., particularly for those who already have the greatest limitations to care, like teens.

It's so important to have public comment on this, so if you have not done so yet, take a few minutes tonight and be sure to get something in.

* * *

I am writing to urge you to stop efforts to block women's access to basic reproductive health services.

I understand that the proposed regulations that the Department of Health and Human Services released on August 21, 2008 expand existing law to allow more health care providers and institutions to refuse to provide needed care.

As written, the regulations could allow institutions and individuals -- based on religious beliefs -- to deny women access to birth control and permit individuals to refuse to provide information and counseling about basic heath care services. Moreover, they expand existing laws by permitting a wider range of health care professionals to refuse to provide even referrals for abortion services.

For those of us working in healthcare, the onus is on us to choose a clinic or an area of practice where we know we want to provide the healthcare services offered to clients, and which we feel is in alignment with our personal values or religious beliefs. It should not be on those seeking needed health services. It is our responsibility -- and we have the greater agency as as workers -- to seek out the work we want, and leave the work we do not want, or do not feel we can live with, to those who are supportive and can honor any given job description. It is also our responsibility to take a job earnestly, not disingenuously. In healthcare, we have an extra responsibility, which is to put our clients needs and their physical health -- not our ideas about their spiritual health -- ahead of our own, and to care for them in the way which is best for them, objectively, rather than in the ways we feel would be best for us, or feel our religion would mandate.

Read the rest of her article here. Seriously!

It's a pretty big deal and your comments (pro or, I guess, con) can make a big difference. The reproductive-health website passes along a link to an online comments form at Physicans for Reproductive Choice and Health. You can write your own comments or just use the template letter they provide. I've added mine, please consider adding yours.

Thank you!

figleaf

Memorable: "Remember if you're giving your bathtub spout a handjob [whispers] it doesn't add to your number!"

Doh! #1: via Feministing.

...I'd be able to put a more direct link than this one in my blogroll.

I'm guessing you've seen links to various video clips of Sarah Haskins. She seems to be a cast member of Infomania on the Current TV (cable?) channel.

Anyway, Ms.I emailed me a link to Haskin's recent riff on assumptions regarding the politics of PUMAs and I started digging further back, some of which I'd stumbled across before and most I hadn't.

The political content of her pieces are intelligent and well-informed, she and/or her producers make sharp use of TV production -- better use than a lot of other variety/personality (e.g. Letterman, SNL, SCTV) programming does -- and she's got great comic timing.

For instance here's a smartly prescient video she made after Senator Obama clinched the Blue nomination but before either party convention.

Anyway, if you've got a more specific link to her work I'll update my links.

Rori of Between My Sheets polled around for a list of the top 100 sex bloggers of 2008. Given what a non-sexy curmudgeon I've been lately I'm grateful to have made the cut but that's not why I think it's worth checking out.

Instead what's great is, first of all, the other 98 entries -- the many I knew about and the many others I didn't. Second of all? She purposely left the 100th entry blank

Why is #100 blank? Because I know there are dozens…hundreds…of other amazing sex bloggers out there, and I want everyone to be a part of this list. If you weren’t already include, please promote yourself and your blog with a comment below. You can also feel free to link to other people’s blogs in a comment. Anything goes! I hope you’ll copy/paste this list on your own blog, if you have one. You don’t have to link back here - just get the word out about these amazing bloggers. Or, create your own list!

She said it here.

Here's the list

1. Sinclair Sexsmith http://sugarbutch.net
2. Radical Vixen http://www.radicalvixen.com
3. Curvaceous Dee http://curvaceousdee.blogspot.com
4. Always Aroused Girl http://aagblog.com
5. Ellie Lumpesse www.lumpesse.com
6. Catalina http://catalinaloves.com
7. Selena Kitt http://selenakittyn.com
8-9. Wifey and Hubby http://wifeytalk.com
10. Roger http://wwww.dirtyboy2.blogspot.com
11. Essin¿ Em http://essin-em.com
12. Amber Rhea http://www.beingamberrhea.com
13-14. Richard and Amy http://247richardandamy.com
15-16. MJ and MJ¿s Slave http://www.aslavestruenature.blogspot.com
17. Thursday¿s Child http://thursdayschildhasfartogo.blogspot.com
18. Narration by D http://narrationbyd.blogspot.com
19. Andrea Zanin http://www.sexgeek.wordpress.com
20. The Provocateur http://theprovocateur.wordpress.com
21. Violet Blue http://tinynibbles.com
22. Autumn http://dreamsofaneroticaqueen.sensualwriter.com
23. SSS http://sweatshopsissy.wordpress.com
24. Storm http://ambientstorm.blogspot.com
25. Sub lyn http://longdistancesub.blogspot.com
26. Tara Tainton http://www.taratainton.com/tarastrysts/index.html
27. Jake http://factsandfriction.blogspot.com
28. Cherry Bomb http://cherrybombnyc.blogspot.com
29. Lakey http://fairelaffaire.blogspot.com
30. Scarlet Lotus Sexgeek http://femmeinistfucktoy.com
31. Glenpreece http://lastbreath.wordpress.com
32. Lolita Wolf http://www.leatheryenta.com
33. Vixen http://blue-eyedvixen.com
34. Tom Paine http://perverselypoly.blogspot.com
35. Tongue Tied Blue http://tonguetiedblue.blogspot.com
36. Maymay http://www.maybemaimed.com
37. Miss Bliss http://blog.blisswarrior.com
38. Mistress Maeve http://7d.blogs.com/mistress
39. Nadia http://www.kinkylibrarian.net
40. Luka http://barbedwireboudoir.blogspot.com
41-42. Odysseus and Penelope http://marriedexploits.blogspot.com
43. Eileen http://bloodylaughter.com
44. Calico http://dominatrixnextdoor.com/blog
45. Caroline Shepherd http://feministsexcarnival.blogspot.com
46. Kathleen http://polyspace.wordpress.com
47. Packing Vocals http://packingvocals.blogspot.com
48. Audacia Ray http://www.wakingvixen.com
49. Axe http://unspeakableaxe.com
50. Baccus http://www.erosblog.com
51. Chelsea Summers http://prettydumbthings.typepad.com/chelseagirl
52. Debauchette http://debauchette.wordpress.com
53. The Butterfly Temptress http://thebutterflytemptress.com
54. Dirty Little Girl http://dirtylittlemind.blogspot.com
55. Sexy Whispers http://sexywhispers.wordpress.com
56. Wendy Blackheart http://www.heartfullofblack.com
57-58. Padme and Anakin http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com
59-60. Him and Her http://sexcakes.blogspot.com
61. Slip of a Girl http://aslipofagirl.blogspot.com
62. Blowjob Babe http://strokesuckswallow.blogspot.com
63-64. Dirty Debbie and CJ http://dirtydebbie.blogspot.com
65. Scorpio http://adventuresofascorpio.blogspot.com
66. Charlotte http://charlottethorpe73.wordpress.com
67. Bitchy Jones http://bitchyjones.wordpress.com
68. Anastasisa http://www.chaosnoir.com/anastasia
69. Alice http://anonymous-alice.blogspot.com
70. Anita Wagner http://practicalpolyamory.blogspot.com
71. Jack http://writingdirty.com
72. Mistress Matisse http://mistressmatisse.blogspot.com
73. Mariella http://wannaplaymariella.blogspot.com
74. O http://eros-logos.blogspot.com
75. Shasta Gibson http://shastagibson.com
76. Gwen http://www.pop-shot.blogspot.com
77. fivestar http://www.iamfivestar.com
78. Lilly http://dangerouslilly.com
79. Penny http://birdsaresmart.blogspot.com
80. Figleaf http://www.realadultsex.com
81. Tony http://www.comstockfilms.com/blog/tony
82. Viviane http://www.thesexcarnival.com
83. Six http://sixelaborates.wordpress.com
84. Bob http://bobsbestboobs.com
85-99. Fiammetta, Jill, Robyn, Scarlot, Melissa, Kitten, Karly, Holly, Surgeon, Stacey, Tara, Jessica, Gina, Wendy, and Tori http://deepthroated.wordpress.com
100.

If you wanted to start a blogroll that was more organized than mine that would be a great place to start.

[Oh, and lest more recent readers wonder what's the big deal about sex bloggers anyway or why I'd call myself one, here's why I blog about sex. --fl]

Ezra Klein on Bill Kristol's concern trolling of Senator Obama's non-selection of Sen. Clinton for VP.

People standing on glass ceilings shouldn't throw stones. Read it in context here.

Ok, so this is cool. Or, I mean, hot. Sarah Porricelli and Sarah Morgan had enough fun selecting the hottest male blogger (non-sex blogger Peter Shankman) that they going a step further and soliciting nominations for not one, not two, but an entire calendar's worth of hot bloggers!

When I first started blogging there were some pretty wonderful male sex bloggers, but probably not enough to fill a calendar. Now there are quite a few more and I think it's great. If you want to nominate someone (it obviously doesn't have to be me**, especially after being such a dull boy all summer) you can nominate your hottest male blogger here, and, since Porricelli and Morgan didn't want to follow Playboy's lead and select only from one gender, they're running a second contest so you can nominate your hottest female blogger here.

Key point, though: your nominees don't have to be hot *sex* bloggers. For instance while Peter Shankman was selected as the hottest he's just a great, eclectic, all-around sociable blogger and seemingly a darn good choice. The point is don't feel like you have to limit yourself to any category. (And since "hot" doesn't have to mean "hawtt" my choices, for instance, might be political blogger Ezra Klein for hot male blogger. And at least for today I might choose Rachel Maddow for hottest woman blogger.)

Further details here:

You nominate your Hot Blogger, male or female. Nominations will be accepted for just one week, from August 18-25. You can vote for yourself (we won’t tell!) or for any other blogger who makes you muy caliente!

But you must spread the word, because obviously, the more people who vote for you your nominee, the better chance that you your nominee will be a finalist. Finalists will be announced August 25, and voting from August 25-September 1 will determine the Hot Bloggers who will grace your calendar pages throughout 2009.

Source: Hot Blogger Contest

Anyway if you're into these sorts of things tell *all* your friends.

[** The one fly in the ointment would be that being only 98.6 degrees (Fahrenheit) I'm not exactly *hot,* and that I'd bring that up says I'm not exactly cool either. Which, I guess, makes me only lukewarm... "But m'friends call me Luke." --fl]

Photo "Projection" by Flickr user dcassaa. Used under a Creative Commons license.

What Jesse Taylor said. Because, yeah, because *feminism* is responsible for all that.

The 5th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy is up over at Amber Rhea's place. She's picked a great batch of entries from a wonderfully diverse group of bloggers. She's also graciously included my post The Scarlet Letter and the Law.

In case it helps increase their Google rankings, other contributors include Sarah of Season of the Bitch, Purtek, Sunflower_p, Ms. Naughty, Abby Lee, Melissa Gira, Holly of The Pervocracy, Susie Bright, Renegade Evolution, SnowdropExplodes, Dw3t-Hthr, Trinity, Jenny Penny, GallingGalla, Susan Portnoy, Sex Geek, Trish Wilson, La Libertine, AlwaysArousedGirl, Radical Vixen, Violet Blue, Ellie of Lumpesse, Emilie Dice, Miss Leon Symone, Debauchette, GraciePassette, Sam Remmer, Juhu Thukral, Monica at $pread, Alexa of The Real Princess Diaries, Caroline of Uncool, and, of course, Amber Rhea of Being Amber Rhea, who's post includes very nice summaries of the others.

Screenshot via Feministing, hosted by PhotoBucket.

I first noticed the Right Wing's decision to demonize Hillary Clinton some time in very late 1991 or early 1992. Although it must surely have begun warming up before then I associate it with the moment of their collective ZOMG-end-of-the-world flip-out over her post-election name change from "Hillary Clinton" to the scary-fezemeninist "Hillary Rodham Clinton"

And as I fretted last month they've wasted no time trying to smear Michelle Obama just as they would have Elizabeth Edwards, or Jill Tracey Jacobs (Joe Biden, not sure if she's taken his last name), or Barbara Flavin (Bill Richardson, ditto), Elizabeth Kucinich or even long-shot Rita Gravel.

As I've said, um, a lot since at least 1992, if you want to be a twit attack someone for her gender, or race, or orientation, or whatever instead of something substantive. The right wing, intellectually *as well as* morally bankrupt since ketchup as a vegetable, have nothing but twit.

This has worked because, evidently, until at least 2004 the center and left have had nothing but doofus. Not so much any more.

Jessica Valenti of Feministing says

Fox's Senior Vice President of Programming Bill Shine told the Politico that the producer responsible for labeling Michelle Obama "Obama's baby mama" in a segment "exercised poor judgment." Uh, yeah, I'd say so. (So much for a heartfelt apology.)

Via the newly-launched Michelle Obama Watch, created by What About Our Daughters. (Add it to your blogrolls, and get involved in keeping tabs on the media!)

I copied her entire post from here.

I've added the site to my blogroll. Even if you're not a fan of the Obamas, if you'd rather they were engaged on a policy rather than personal level you might consider doing likewise. (Twittery, by the way, is not limited to 'wingers -- the left is starting to become disgracefully twittish about John McCain's age and I'd hate for that to interfere with his *enormous* lapses and gaps in substance.)

[Oh yeah, and "baby momma?" Seriously? What's worse is a lot of people are arguing "but they're married," and "but she's educated," and... and... and... yeah, and they're playing into the FOX News frame. Instead "baby momma" is only, and entirely, and inextricably a) racist and b) sexist. No other "talking points" are necessary whether you're talking about... well... *anybody!* --fl]

Photo by Flickr user Maproom Systems. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Dana Stevens of Slate.com's The XX Factor crystalizes the problem with Philip Weiss's "no-sex" class paradigm-cementing New York magazine article

...what Weiss tries to frame as a radical rethinking of marriage amounts to a code of conduct so familiar as to be reactionary. Hey, what if we lived in a world where, because of their struggles with monogamy, men were subject to a less restrictive set of sexual expectations than women? And what if, instead of working as, say, waitresses, young women could fashion alternate careers for themselves as professional "mistresses"? What if sloppy think-piece writers could conflate the practices of "empowered" courtesan-bloggers like Debauchette or the polyamorous authors of The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities with the sequestration and abuse of 14-year-old girls by the FLDS cult? Oh, wait, we're living in that world already.

She says it here.

Pretty definitive take down. There's really not much to add though I do have two words if you want a nice alternative answer that doesn't really depend very much on gender and even less on sociobiology and *does* include space for multilateral rather than unilateral libido and agency: Esther Perel. I haven't said enough nice things about her book lately, but her explanations for, especially, in-partnership alienation and extra-partnership infidelity are wonderfully eye-opening.

Photo by Flickr user Wurz. Used under a Creative Commons license.

The Third Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy is up over at Whatsername's Jaded Hippie. She included two of my posts plus someone else's refutation of one of them, and I'm satisfied that all three were selected. As usual I learned a lot from following other included links as well.

Photo by Flickr user equalaccessfundauction.

Jessica Valenti of Feministing says

The Equal Access Fund of East Tennessee is holding a silent auction on Flickr to raise funds for low-income women who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford reproductive health care services.

Source: Feministing

Roughly 37 years ago I was a teen volunteer for an East Tennessee crisis center. In those days, just before Roe vs. Wade, we had to raise funds not just for the procedures but for transportation -- nearly 500 miles to Washington, D.C. till the end of the first trimester, a few hundred more to New York for anything after. So in a way things have gotten better since then... but the obstacles for low-income women there are still pretty high.

As befits a region proud of its home craft traditions the items for the auction look locally made. Some of the items, like the knitted condom or compact tampon case, are adorable. Others like the male nude coloring books are wonderfully risque for the area. The silkscreened uterus undies, greeting cards, and Tights for Justice are serious fun.

Even if you, like me, tend to support your own local choice infrastructure the items themselves, plus the creative use of Flickr as a silent-auction tool, are worth a look.

What Ema of The Well-Timed Period said about the difference between 20 year old men and 20 year old women -- in general, yes, but under the current administration in particular.

Actually, technically, the difference being that young women with the same *political connections,* or political sympathies as the young man in question (the 20-year-old guy who got the nod from U.S. officials to supply $300,000,000 worth of shitty bullets and other munitions to the Afghanistan police and army) *are* permitted to make their own medical/reproductive decisions. Because "they're different." They "have their whole lives in front of them." Because they "weren't being irresponsible."

This evening I went to a fundraiser for Cedar River Clinics. It's one of only a handful of independent women's clinics left in the United States that provides full services including pregnancy termination. The fundraiser was not for the benefit of the women who get those "free passes," the ones who, as in the days before Roe simply "needed abdominal surgery, poor thing" with full complicity of discreet medical professionals. Instead it was to help those whom anti-abortion laws are designed to hurt most: those living in poverty, not speaking the dominant language, teenagers, the undocumented, the intimidated, the already ill, the overtaxed with other children, the domestically abused, those who don't live in the meager 15% of counties where abortion services are available and must therefore travel, and those who don't have money for a simple, early termination and must therefore race their bodies and the calendar to raise money for a riskier, far more expensive, later termination before it's too late even for that.

If you've got a little extra (where "a little" is as little as ten dollars) you can donate here. And, if you're up for something a little different, the inevitable anti-choice protesters are being put to good use with the clinic's creative Pledge a Picketer program.

So a subscriber review of the 2006 French film Lady Chatterleysays, simply

Very Dull and slow. Lacks drama and substance. And the character were not attractive at all.

The reviewer said it here.

All absolutely true. Also completely irrelevant.

Image from Amazon.com

Hippolyte Girardot plays Clifford, Lord Chatterly, left invalid after service in World War I. Marina Hands is Constance, the eponymous Lady who's pretty but in the way of ordinary people, neither polished nor plucked nor permed. Meanwhile Jean-Louis Coullo'ch Parkin, the rawboned, vital, but neither young nor particularly handsome gamekeeper.

The movie takes *forever* to get anywhere. Not just the "good stuff" but *anywhere!* It gets there gorgeously, sure, such that anyone not waiting for the "good stuff" won't mind. Which, it turns out, is marvelously appropriate for conveying the impact of circumstantially *enforced* membership in the idealized "no-sex" class on a human woman. If the paradigm were valid then Constance should have been in paradise! A wealthy, accomplished, companionable-enough but physically incapable husband who's infirmities allow her her own bedroom, her own books, her needlepoint by the fire, her walks in the woods...

...her anguished reflection on her naked body in the mirror

... her sitting unmoving, sometimes for hours, her crossed hands curled limply in her lap...

...and eventually her failure to get out of bed at all...

Ok, maybe not so ideal but nevertheless all but her sister tacitly or openly remind her how right things are for her.

Actually I don't remember it in the movie but generally one addressed such problems in the old day by observing that young women often pine for...

...children. Because, you know, according to the paradigm even when women *do* want sex they want it for *something else.*

At any rate, this sets the scene for Constance's encounter with Parkin -- seen from a distance not at all the naked god of wood and vine bathing outside his cottage the way he's usually given to us in movies. Instead he's only naked to the waist, a huge, solid, torso, not Fabio handsome but able to stand unaided, unwounded, and, since he doesn't see her, unaffected by her.

And while Constance is clearly affected by Parkin's presence, but as she walks away she gasps for breath not from passion but from having grown utterly, nearly fatally weak from her passive, theoretically idealized, empty life.

And still the movie takes its time for her to slowly, slowly rebel against the role that was created for her by her culture.

The movie is as it should be. Dull and slow, with characters not attractive at all.

But scarcely without substance.

I'm not sure you'll find the film at Blockbuster but it's available on Netflix. You'd probably need to be in the mood and since, with such slow pacing landscape photography plays a pretty critical role, you'd want a pretty good screen to watch it on. That said I recommend it for the meditations of the first hour if nothing else.

Maybe ten, maybe fifteen years ago there was a little tidal wave of do-it-yourself family oral histories, aided by a couple of books, a number of popular press articles, and even at least one computer program.

The oral history model involves asking simple, clear, and very open-ended question that are designed not so much to get specific answers as to unlock whole corridors of memory.

Now, via Jess McCabe of The F-Word Blog's Sex-Ed for Adults project it turns out someone's

One of the many brilliant resources that I've come across through our sex-ed for adults project is the About.com sexuality blog.

Today they recommend an exercise about writing out your own sexual story. Not in the sense of a sexual history you might tell a doctor, or long list of conquests, but more a private diary, or opportunity to think through your experiences of sex and sexuality.

Read the quote in context here.

The organizing post, once again, is Cory Silverberg's "Writing Your Sexual History."

Writing your own sexual history is a different kind of exercise. It’s only for your benefit and as such you get to define the terms and parameters and even the questions. Whatever sort of change or growth your looking for in terms of your sexuality or your sex life, writing your own sexual history offers many benefits including:

• the chance to reflect on your experiences from your earliest memories to the present and think about the choices you’ve made and what resulted from those decisions,
• getting a big picture perspective, that can help you see patterns and paths that you might not have otherwise noticed,

  the chance to identify the things you like and don’t like, and understand your sexual terrain in new ways,

• gaining a sense of emotional and psychological control over your sexual history and how you experience positive and negative past events in the present,
• getting more control over your current sexual behaviors.

He said it here.

Can I just try to stress how important this can be, not so much to others -- Silverberg isn't conducting research, just making suggestions -- as to *ourselves?* At least that's the way an awful lot of oral-history subject say when they've been given a chance. Like writing, and like those sometimes-crazy "survival" courses, and like... well... like a lot of other opportunities for introspection and self-examination you learn stuff about yourself you didn't think you knew... stuff you didn't believe could be *true.*

Pretty cool stuff, in other words.

Anyway, here's an example of the kind of bland and, when you think about it, serious but non-confrontive questions in Silverberg's list:

Sexual Values: Our position on issues such as monogamy, promiscuity, sex work, abortion, homosexuality and fundamental sexual rights may say a lot or nothing at all about who we are as sexual beings.

• What were some of the sexual values you were raised with?
• How have your values changed, and how have they remained the same over time?
• Can you remember a time when you experienced a conflict between your values and your desires?

Other subjects include fantasies, partners, influences, orientation, satisfaction, feelings, memories, and so on. Hey, if nothing else if you're a meme fanatic or you like quizzes... or even if you're just looking for new things to blog about. But it might also be an avenue for insight into not just how you are but who!

Anyway, figleaf says check it out.

[To bleg: "A blog entry consisting of a request to the readers, such as for information or contributions. A portmanteau of 'blog' and 'beg'. Also called 'Lazyweb.'" This post includes a request for information from readers, preceded by an explanation of why I'm interested. --fl]

So the other day I mentioned in a footnote that I'd like to find some good introductory feminism books for children age nine (approximately 3rd-4th grade U.S.) and up for my daughter (age 8) and son (age 11). In comments several other people with children said they were interested in the same thing. None of us are familiar with any specific titles.

SugarMag suggested in comments that her mom started her on easy-reader biographies of first-wave feminists and that sounds great.

Anyway, this is a serious request for titles that worked for you when you were a child, or that have worked for your children, or that you've just heard of and thing would work. If you've *written* such a book, or if a friend or relative has, then now's the chance to put in a not-even-all-that-shameless plug! If for maybe work-related reasons you don't feel comfortable commenting please consider emailing me.

Thanks!

Coincidentally commenters over at Twisty's place have contributed a similar list for much older girls and women.

Image from Amanda Marcotte's "Book ad up." post at Pandagon

Twisty Faster of I Blame The Patriarchy has the perfect book-jacket blurb for Amanda Marcotte's It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.

Jungle is all jokes, but it isn’t all jokey. Contained therein is some primo patriarchy-blaming. She takes on PETA, Hollywood, abstinence-only “education,” the famous anti-Girl Scout backlash, and plenty more. No, it’s not a lesbian separatist revolutionary tract, but I pity the hardcore radfem who doesn’t get a bang out this book.

Read the quote in context here.

I read the book last week on vacation and haven't had time to say nice things about it. I quite liked the book. Although there was this one personally embarrassing thing about it.

In format the book appears as a series of problems confronting women, with a brief intro, a bit of discussion, and then a list of things you can do. In other words it's laid out like most standard text-oriented travel/survival guides. And it's a great list of issues women, especially but not exclusively young academic or professional women, regularly find themselves confronting. In addition to the topics Twisty mentions there's...

Your conservative relatives discover you're a feminist? Check. Assumption that if you're vegetarian it's a feminist thing? Check. Men who like the "challenge" of dating feminists? Check. The office donut do-or-don't-damnation conundrum? Check. Intelligent defense of the Girl Scouts? Check. "Asshole-bleaching?" Check, and handled with all the dignity the subject deserves. Dealing with Nice Guys™, MRAs, fundamentalists, anti-choicers, and wedding consultants? Check.

Embarrassing admission of utter cluelessness while reading? For maybe the first five or ten chapters I kept reading these fantastically incisive, classically-Marcott-ish zingers in the chapter intros and then totally wincing at the comparable level of snark in her proposed remedies. I mean, I kept saying WTF? (You could see them in my copy of the book, right there, in the margins, in pencil.) I kept thinking the same thing about the so-over-the-top-it-almost-stops-being-appalling 50s-era mainstream adventure-babe comics cover and chapter-break art.

So what was my problem? I didn't notice the "politics/humor" classification. It reads like a snarky joke book because, incisive introductions aside it's a snarky *joke book!* Doh! The illustrations are offensive because Marcotte was offended. The suggestions are acidly (and if you get it, humorously) sarcastic because sincerity has so often been ignored or misinterpreted these last 37 years -- so might as well have fun while being misinterpreted.

Ok, so I might not give it to my eight year old right away, not till she's read a few more straight-ahead and age-appropriate introductions**. But I'll definitely give her a copy before she's ready for high school. I think it'll be perfect for her then, just like I think it'll be perfect all kinds of people high-school age and up.

[** Bleg: Speaking of which, what *are* the age-appropriate (3rd-5th grade, 6th-8th grade, and high-school level) introductions to feminism for kids? Preferably suitable for both girls *and* boys. Let me know in comments if you've got 'em. --fl]

Photo by Flickr user vivified. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Jess McCabe of The F-Word Blog says

Following on from Laura's post about the poverty of sex education in the UK, we got thinking about ways to fill in those gaps (and then some) for adults.

Me and Laura are looking to compile a listing of resources on safe, happy, consenting sex, relationships and sexuality, for the over 18 set, who can no longer benefit from whatever wisdom HMG and the national curriculum might impart. Can you help us?

Of course, we're particularly interested in anything which is coming from an explicitly or implicitly feminist perspective. And we're interested in making this as inclusive as possible. That means regardless of/aimed at all levels of experience (beginner to advanced!), sexuality, gender, kink or lack thereof, etc.

Book, blog, website, workshop, feminist/women's sex toy store, DVD, audio tape - whatever it is, we're interested! Not porn though, at least partly because that gets into contentious territory we're not really interested in for this one.

A few words on why you are making the recommendation would also be great. You can tell us anonymously if you so wish in the comments, or email us using the feedback form.

We've got a few resources listed in the bookshop's sex and relationships section, to get your thought process started.

I've quoted the whole post and please go there to leave any suggestions.

I think this is a fabulous initiative, and a much-needed one. Because almost all of us learn about sex at the same time we're undergoing adolescence it's not surprising we sometimes confuse the adolescence part with the sex part. That's actually fine *while you're an adolescent.* Not so hot if we never learn to migrate to real adult relationships or, well, um, *adult* sex.

I also have to say that it's a fabulous idea because unlike a lot of other stuff in the world, the obstacles to real adult sex are way more a product of simply not noticing, not knowing, or not thinking about stuff. Plus, compared to other stuff in the world the benefits of adult sex education tend to be enormous, immediately useful, and instantly appreciated.

Just to get the ball rolling, since I've just moments ago finished a quarter in a college-level sex-education program here are some recommended links that my instructors and fellow students thought were pretty useful.

• Go Ask Alice
  http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/about.html
  Go Ask Alice! is the health question and answer Internet service produced by Alice!, Columbia University's Health Education Program - a division of Health Services at Columbia.
  This site has three primary features:
  
  • New GAA! Q&As of the Week gives you the latest inquiries and responses - this section is updated every Friday.
    
  • Search GAA! lets you find health information by subject via a search of the ever-growing Go Ask Alice! archives containing nearly 2,600 previously-posted questions and answers.
    
  • Ask Alice! gives you the chance to ask Alice! a question.
    
  
  
• Babeland
  http://www.babeland.com
  
  
• Disability and Sexuality
  http://www.disabilityresources.org/SEX.html
  
  
• Equality Now website
  http://www.equalitynow.org/english/navigation/hub_en.html
  Equality Now was founded in 1992 to work for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. Working with national human rights organizations and individual activists, Equality Now documents violence and discrimination against women and adds an international action overlay to support their efforts to advance equality rights and defend individual women who are suffering abuse.
  
  
• The Gottman Institute
  http://www.gottman.com/
  Right here in Seattle we have one of the best relationship researchers in the country. The Gottman Institute is committed to helping couples using techniques built on substantial, reliable and valid research with couples. In addition, they hold useful workshops and train therapists.
  
  
• The Guide to Getting It On
  http://www.goofyfootpress.com/
  Here is the link for a very frank, amusing and completely useful sex guide, check it out.
  
  
• Guttmacher Institute
  http://www.guttmacher.org/index.html
  The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) is a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research, policy analysis and public education.
  
  
• SEX EDUCATION: WHAT PEOPLE THINK
  http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/pomr012904oth.cfm
  A new project by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University's Kennedy School examines Americans' views on sex education in the nations public schools.
  
  
• Sexual Harassment: It's not academic.
  http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/ocrshpam.html
  
  
• The Wet Spot
  http://www.wetspot.org/
  A sex positive community center in Seattle.
  Note: Now known as the Center for Sex-Positive Culture and on the web at http://www.sexpositiveculture.org/

Again, if you've got suggestions of your own, please make them over at The F-Word Blog. Thanks!

[Note: I just so want a t-shirt like the one in the photo at the top! --fl]

Thanks to Ily of Asexy Beast for pointing me to a very cool new asexuality resource site called Apositive.org. When you first go to the site it presents a bit like a low-frequency blog with maybe five posts. It gets a little more lively in the navigation bar on the left, but it looks like the real action, and the real reason I already love this site, is sort of tucked away under "forums" in the row of links just below the title banner.

Click that and realize the site only *seems* sleepy. There's a lot of cool, cool community of people enthusiastic about exploring and supporting the diverse asexuality universe.

I gotta say that, first of all, if you're asexual or not sure then Apositive looks like a great community. But then I also gotta say if you're *not* asexual but you're open minded and curious what the rest of sexuality looks like from the outside then... Apositive is *also* a great community!

For example in this post in a discussion thread titled "Why not have sex?", a member named Omnes et Nihil says

I personally do identify very much as sex-positive, and this is rather important to me. (This is just MY PERSONAL take and in no way implies that others should do the same.) For me, being sex-positive is mostly political and ideological. I believe we live in an extremely sex-negative (oversexualised, but sex-negative) society, with a lot of shame and oppressive wierdness around sexuality, and I think that's a bad thing. And I see all that as very much tied to issues of sexism and heterosexism, and opposing them. For me, being sex-positive is very theoretical, with practical applications granted, but not at all about how I personally related to the idea or act of sex.

You can find this particular link here.

"I believe we live in an extremely sex-negative (oversexualised, but sex-negative) society..."

No, not a new insight but what economy of words! And leave it to an asexual to clarify exactly what it really means to be sex *positive.* And to at least subtly point out the difference between sexuality and sexualization. And oversexualization.

Consider anti-gay extremist minister Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. There's no reason to believe Phelps dislikes or avoids actual sex, period, but if he wasn't so frantically oversexualized about same-gender sexuality he wouldn't be so morally, socially, and spiritually incapacitated by it. Or so negative about it.

Nor is Phelps' the only form of negativity. Consider the implications behind the words outrageous, daring, or shocking when they're used, with approval, in an effort to generate extra interest in sex. As if ordinary interest somehow wasn't enough.

Anyway, my point being that in a lot of ways asexuals are the best people to learn about human sexuality (though not so much the ins and outs of actual sex.)

Oh, and can I just also add that it's a breath of fresh air to hear men at Apositive confidently talking about their lack of interest, given the eternal message of men as the obligate sex class? That's pretty cool too.

Photo from Silent-Porn-Star's blog.

According to the very interesting Silent Porn Star's blog, one hundred years ago this year, Australian silent-film star Annette Kellerman was arrested for indecent exposure for wearing the swimsuit in the picture. Until she came along women's suits were actual dresses (usually wool knit!) with ankle-length pants!

It's worth noting that in the early 1900s Kellerman was deemed the world's most perfectly-formed woman. (No doubt sociobiologists have dozens of competing theories *all* of which explain how gene-based human standards of beauty could have evolved in just three or four generations.)

SPS, who puts a lot of work into humanizing early, early dancers and actresses, has quite a lot else to say about Kellerman in the original post. In addition to ending Victorian bathing-dress decency standards (which, she correctly argued, resulted in the drowning deaths of countless women) and appearing nude in pre-MMPA mainstream silent films she was a screenwriter, a swimming-education activist, a role model for Esther Williams, a physical-fitness instruction-manual author, and founder of a fitness club. Who knew?

In the face of my recognition of cool men manage to have sex lives (or not) without being ruled by it, I'd like to reiterate my recognition of asexuality as well. I got radicalized to asexuality years ago in a sexuality section of a progressive discussion site. A perfectly well-adjusted, non-abused woman piped up that she had no, zero, none interest in sex... and it just freaked everybody out.

And it's *not even a mistake* that it freaked anyone out because by and large asexual people just usually don't talk about it any more than I as a non-stamp collector talk about not collecting stamps.

So anyway, once I got over *my* initial shock and started listening to her I learned a heck of a lot not just about asexuality but about sexuality as well. (And also, obviously, a lesson about how people can *talk* about orientation and tolerance until you run into someone who's just not interested.)

Same when I read Joan Sewell's I'd Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido. Despite a few quibbles dealing largely with her assumption that it's mostly women, I still think it's the most interesting sex book of the year.

And now I've just happened across Ily of asexy beast who's put together an "Asexuality 101" post.

Okay, so it's not exactly the next New York Times #1 Bestseller, but it is an advanced reading copy...of something. This is my draft for the Stanford LGBT group's info card about asexuality. So if you've been wanting some basic information, read on...

She lays out the details here.

Anyway, because there are so few asexuals blogging about it, even though at any point up to 15% of the adult men and women may be practicing temporary or lifetime asexuals, I've added to my blogroll.

So through a Technorati link I discovered Rachel Kramer Bussel's got a cross-dressing erotica blog. Although I tried cross-dressing once for a HNT photo I didn't get enough of a rise either for myself or from readers to bother trying it again. (Note: just because it doesn't get my motor running doesn't mean I don't totally get that it really revs other people up.)

But anyway, I noticed that Vixen of Secrets of a Blue-Eyed Vixen showed up in her partner's button-down shirt for today's HNT, and between that and finding Rachel's blog immediately afterwards I got the cross-dressing epiphany that a woman in a man's shirt is, like, the hottest kind of lingerie you can get. Mmm. Forget untying bows and laces, how about unbuttoning buttons one by one!?!?

Men's shirts on women. Manly, yes, but I like it too! :-)

Tradition plus a great deal of doctrine left, right, and center says the feelings I have for Holly of The Pervocracy ought to be complicated. Instead they're wholly uncomplicated: the world's just a better place with people like Holly in it. She doesn't have to be my daughter for me to hope my daughter (and son) might be a bit like her when they grow up. She doesn't have to be my partner for me to be happy for her and her partners. She doesn't have to someday become my doctor for me to believe she'll make a great one.

I just read Jessica Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism, an eminently reasonable and plain-spoken explanation of why young women today still need feminism. It's written from a very down-to-earth, mostly heterosexual (but not heteronormative!) perspective, and it manages to be non-academic without being stupid, if you know what I mean and that's not a common feat in this type of book.

In the past, I've been a little wary of feminism, because my initial exposure was way too academic and way too unrealistic. No, I don't feel that my life is unbearably suffused with phallic energy, and no, I don't believe that the world used to be a utopian matriarchy, and no, I don't think that having sex with boys--including nasty filthy sex, including sex on camera--is betraying the Sisters.

Fortunately it turns out that these things are not necessary to be a feminist. What is necessary is a desire for honest equality, and the understanding that it hasn't happened yet. To be honest it's the second part that I was slower to get to. I mean, I hold a job, I go to school, I vote, nobody ever says to my face that "you can't do this, you're a girl", so what was the big deal? Beer ads?

Actually, yeah, beer ads are a small part of it, but the main thing is a pervasive cultural mindset. It has very real, very obvious effects like women earning less than men and women being denied contraception and given abstinence education. And just the general idea--the feeling you can get from media and politics and casual conversation that men are people and women are a weird subcategory of people. It's everything from talk about "women voters" (men are just voters) to the reason this site doesn't feature my face and last name. (Not that a man could, but someone who didn't talk about sex could. And anti-sex sentiments are directly connected to anti-feminist ones.)

So I guess I'm a feminist because I'd like to be a person, not just a woman. Yeah, we're closer to the ideal than we were in the 1950's; no, we ain't nearly there yet.

And I'm also a feminist because I like to fuck, and I resent everything and everyone that would make that a secret shame. I fuck not to make marriages or babies but simply to fuck, and I am sick and fucking tired of the government and beer ads and my friends and fucking Cosmopolitan telling me there's something wrong with that.

I love men. I love them as partners and as friends and as people. I just want to be 100% certain that I'm people too.

I've quoted her entire post from here.

That's the world I want my children to grow up in to. That's the world I want grow old in. She wants that world too. Not complicated at all about that.

Technically the only complication was deciding if there were lines from the quote I wanted to cut. There weren't so I quoted the whole thing. --fl]

So I just found a new blog by Alisa of Kink in Exile. She works for a non-governmental organization (a.k.a. NGO) somewhere in southeast Asia. She's also a BDSM masochist. Which, she makes pretty clear, can be problematic in areas where for women no isn't respected, where it *doesn't* mean no.

Figleaf mentioned the sexual freedom created by the feminist idea of “no means no” in two of his posts and this intrigues me. Of course growing up in the world of 3rd wave feminism I took the idea of “no means no” and “no one asks to be abused” as a matter of course. However, what Figleaf points out is that these ideas give me the power to say yes. He articulates something I have been struggling with since moving to Asia.

You see, I noticed that I am a lot less sexual here; a lot less open to sexuality in general and a lot less desiring of sexual attention in specific. No can mean a lot of things here, but it does not, in general, mean “no, please stop this is not ok with me.” I don’t feel safe here and so energy I would otherwise spend on cultivating relationships I divert toward responding to, and coping with harassment. Furthermore, I don’t feel respected the way I do in the west. I don’t feel like all of my choices will be respected – only the socially acceptable ones. As Figleaf points out I have to think about what I am willing to say yes to because I do not later get the option of saying “No. Enough.”

I may wind up quoting too much of the post. You can see it in one place, though, here.

It's a pretty big deal. Not to say there isn't still a lot more work to do -- not only elsewhere in the world as where Alisa must deal not only with the local culture but also an international/business/NGO culture where the work of learning to respect not just women but *feminism* hasn't been much of a priority -- but it's pretty vivid hearing ideas I can only promote in the abstract returned to me in tangible detail. And it's not just an affirmation of anything I've said. In earlier post on rape she talks about another critical feminist principle: "nobody asks to be abused."

I live in a particularly fucked up place on a generally fucked up planet. I am surrounded by women who are more scared than any western woman I have ever met. They don’t walk alone, don’t sit with men, don’t wear tanktops, don’t drink in public. This is the virgin/whore paradigm taken to the nth degree – we are virgins and the whore should rightfully get raped.

I mentioned to a friend the other day that being sex positive in a culture where rape is so common was getting hard. He told me being sex positive was “extremely risky.” You know what, it is, but that is not what I needed to hear. As Calico pointed out, I am not empowered because I didn’t get raped. Rape is not ok, why is this a question?

Not getting raped should not be a full time job and I am sick and fucking tired of it being just that.

Being a good girl does not protect you from being raped.

Walking in pairs does not protect you from being raped.

Saying no to a drink does not protect you from being raped.

Wearing a burqa does not protect you from being raped.

And why would this "feminist staple" be any business of the vast, vast majority of men who, after all (and as Alisa clearly says) have no interest in raping anyone? I'm darn glad you asked (emphasis mine.)

Pay attention because this one is important – sex is a good thing, and good sex does not lead to rape.

And if you think this isn’t your problem because you’re male you’re wrong. Do you realize the impact on your sex life? Do you realize the affect that a woman in America getting raped every 2 minutes has on the woman you’re dating? Do you really think men can’t get raped? Do you really think that your sex life can be as fulfilling as possible when half of us are taught fear before we know what we’re supposed to be afraid of?

Makes a lot of sense, right? Here's a woman who enjoys sadomasochistic sex violent enough to give the nice people at Kink.com pause, and all around her are guys wanking to, well, clips from kink.com because *they're not doing anything* to make the world safe enough for potential partners like her, like others in their own countries or towns, maybe in their buildings, and maybe *right next to them* perishing away *in the same bed!*

Contrary to what neo-conservative feminists may believe I engage in kinky sex, SM, non-monogamy, or even heteronormative intercourse not in spite of women’s liberation, but because of it. Knowing that when I say “no” it will be respected allows me to say yes to all the things I am interested in without fear. It opens a whole new world of possibilities that were not possible under the virgin/whore paradigm, or if they were came with too high a price. And that is fundamentally the difference between sex in my tribe and sex in exile…when my “no” isn’t respected I am not willing to say “yes.”

"When my 'no' isn't respected I am not willing to say 'yes.'" Think about that. Hard.

And men ask what's in feminism for them? How about honesty in your relationships? How about respect. How about *enthusiasm?* How about trust? How about acceptance of your lust. How about fulfillment of your hopes, dreams, and wildest fantasies?

And yes, this is one of those much-maligned "sex blogs" and so yes, I couch my arguments when I can purely in terms of sex, but I want to be clear that anything and everything men are willing in good faith to put *into* feminism they will get *out of it* more honesty, respect, enthusiasm, trust, acceptance in *every part of their relationships,* and not just in bed. But yeah, in bed too.

You a man who doesn't want to go there? There's probably a box cleanup tissues on the nightstand, table, or bathroom counter near you. How's that been going for you? Want to live like that the rest of your life?

Me neither. And neither does Alisa. And neither do your partners. Whatever perqs we men might think we're getting just don't pencil out so well.

---

Her whole blogs pretty interesting. Check it out if you get a chance.

The 47th Carnival of Feminists, put together by Dizzy Buzzkill, is up at Ornamenting Away.

I mention this not least because she linked to my post defending Scarleteen from chastity guru Wendy Shalit's, um, shallow analysis.

And while I'd like to thank Dizzy, and maybe beat my own drum, I'd like to take a moment to point out that whereas Scareleteen is an extremely popular, high-traffic site and whereas it's an incredible resource for sex information for young people, strange as it might sound, ad revenue and donations have fallen off to a point where Heather Corinna's trying to get a part-time job.

Now it *sounds* like a great job. And it's really cool that her mom's written her a glowing field-appropriate recommendation (long story, see site.) But it would be even greater, even cooler, if a few responsible, progressive advertisers interested in capturing an age-appropriate, head's-up-enough-to-seek-information demographic were to step up and, well, advertise; if a couple of well-heeled individual were willing to step in, or if a few hundred, let alone the tens of thousands of parents and former teenagers who've been helped was willing to pitch in a few bucks.

Contribute here.

Note: I do a small amount of volunteering for Scarleteen and (since it turns out we're practically neighbors) I've become friends with Heather. But before any of that I was a donor to the site because I support sex education for the real world.

(Via Viviane's Sex Carnival)

Cory Silverberg of About.com:Sexuality has a heartfelt lament about the current state of sex blogging.

I have a deeply neurotic and fundamentally unhealthy relationship to blogs. I belong to a transitional technological demographic and while I read blogs voraciously for work, every click holds the possibility of sending me reeling into a fit of informational inadequacy. To top it all off, reading, writing and thinking about sex is work so virtually the only fun thing left for me about sex is actually having it. So in the end, I’m not really sure that I want more sex blogs as much as I might like more blogging about sex. But Susannah’s post made me realize that I haven’t thought much about what I’d actually want from a better sex blog.

• A better sex blog would incite action.
• A better sex blog would be less cool.
• A better sex blog would reveal something about the reader and the blogger.
• A better sex blog would be about everything, just like sex.
• A better sex blog would be critical about sex.
• A better sex blog would be subversive.

In his original post each bullet point is expanded into full detail. See the whole thing here.

On the one hand I could gently reassure Silverberg it's not as bad as he fears, although on the other hand I could give him a cup of coffee and say perk up!

I think one issue with his lament is that -- just as some people seem to think "sex" is limited to only PIV intercourse till male ejaculation -- a lot of people think "sex blog" is limited to first-person accounts of their Saturday night down at the Stop 'n Fight. Or something not far enough from that. But just as there's way more to sex than *having it* there's way more to sex blogging than blogging about having it.

Instead there are plenty of excellent, thoughtful blogs that hit each of the points you mention -- calls to action; revelations about the writer and forced reflection by the reader; about not just the ins and outs of sex but also the politics, the sociology, the history, and the variety of sex; of critical commentary on the manias and conceits and blind spots of sex. Susie Bright, of course, manages rather nicely. And while I'm not crazy about his innovative but too-much-like-a-thumbnail-site design, Sam Sugar can too. Chelsea Girl and AlwaysArousedGirl each compellingly thread their sex lives through the greater fabric of the rest of their lives. CollegeCallgirl can knock your socks off. Same, though for different reasons, with The Beautiful Kind or Cassandra Says. And I don't even think Bright, or Bank, or Collegegirl or TBK or the others are even necessarily the best non-Bridget-Jones blog out there. (I know I left a lot of good people out and besides... what's wrong with Bridget-Jones-blogging anyway?) Anyway I did miss good sex bloggers but follow the links and you'll find someone you like in one or more of the blogrolls you find.

If I can just beat my own drum for a moment, just since Friday I think I've posted about finding common ground between pro- and anti-porn feminists (over the role of agency) which is an invitation to action; I've posted about using instant mac-n-cheese powder as a (surprisingly harmless and flavor-appropriate) sexual flavor dust, which is just about as not cool as you can get; I've posted about cognitively-sound contrarian sex education tactics and parodies of evolutionary psychology, which -- while not about everything just like sex -- helps remind people that there's more to sex than the old in-and-out; riffing off a Susie Bright review of a lame porn video I criticized the Johnny-Knoxville-ization of "gonzo" porn which is pretty critical of a direction away from actual sex people seem to be going with porn (and, sadly, viewers seem to be following); and finally I posted about what I believe is the deeply subversive indictment represented by the actual text (as opposed to the funny pictures) in Rachel P. Maine's The Technology of Orgasm. And if I haven't revealed something about myself in the last week I'm working on a post -- one in a series -- that's about my own personal quest for "worthiness" which, I contend, is for men comparable to the "beauty myth" phenomenon that affects women.

Heck, not to put too fine a point on it but *Cory's blog* is a very good sex blog and his post was a wonderful example of the genre! You just gotta look a little.

So! Sex bloggers. We're there, we're sexy-but-square, get used to it! :-)

Just so you know, The Little Red Day Spa in Seattle offers wonderful, wordless lessons in the difference between sensual health and sexuality.

The general manager, Sophia, is a skilled massage and Watsu therapist, and a passionate advocate of less clinical approaches to massage, relaxation, health, and bodywork in general.

I might have more to say but after a delicious, soapy foot massage, 45 minutes of drifting kelp-like in a body-warm sea while she gently, gently swayed me, stretched me and untangled the knots in my neck and shoulders in the Watsu tub, and afterwards an unhurried massage with hot oil (yummy when that hits your back, chest, or legs!) and an herbed salt-scrub exfoliation I... I... I can't remember what else I was going to say. :-)

Oh right! I was going to say if you're in town, or just visiting, it's oh-yeah worth a trip.

---

There are, of course, other options besides Watsu, massage, and scrubs. Check out the two-hour sculptural mud spa session!.

Ending the Watsu portion of the session is often a little sad. The prospect of a full body mud mask is usually tempting and intriguing enough for most people not to dwell on the end of the Watsu, though.

That sounds about right! There's a somewhat more coherent explanation of the general experience the spa creates in that post as well.

Anna Rose of Voices of American Sexuality has some good news from the second annual Champions of Sexual Literacy Awards Celebration at the Banker's Club in San Francisco

For Grassroots Activism: Heather Corinna, a phenom and sex education warrior who has a wonderful website, scarleteen.com, where she provides "Sex Ed for the Real World"

More about the other four award recipients here.

Scarleteen's massively cool. Providing accurate, unbiased, and, especially, *unbias-ing* information for people who haven't yet had sex is an astonishingly sensitive and complex undertaking. It's nice to see that kind of work recognized. Even nicer when a friend and nearly neighbor like Heather is recognized.

We all know Google can turn up a porn site for pretty much *any* combination of a keyword and "sex." See, for instance "grandpa porn" (which until about a minute ago I didn't think I'd ever search for.) Many of those sites are presented either as rubbernecker sideshows or to cater to highly specialized obligate fetishists. (Not that there's much wrong with the first, or anything wrong with the second -- assuming, of course, age of majority and affirmative consent of the participants.)

Anyway, in a world where specialty porn subjects tends so heavily be made for the benefit of it's fairly ordinary viewers, it's nice sometimes to see specialty porn made *for the subjects themselves.* (Assuming that *if* there's going to be self-generated porn at all then inclusive porn is preferable.)

Enter DeafBunny, created not just by but *for* the deaf and hearing impaired. They've recently announced a new video.

It’s here. It’s FINALLY here. The first adult film with D/HH actors using ASL produced by Deaf Bunny, a Deaf owned and operated adult entertainment business. Yes, indeed. The making of “Naughty Deaf Roommates” has been a courageous and phenomenal feat that has astounded the Deaf community near and far. It’s about time that we, Deaf folks, get a taste of the “naughtiness” that’s out there in the REAL world. “Naughty Deaf Roommates” does just that. Not only does it have oh-so-naughty scenes, it features safe sex training, personal comments by the actresses, and bloopers. All in ASL, of course. Oh, we didn’t stop there. We are aware that not every Deaf person is proficient in ASL, so there are subtitles and voice carry-overs for those who rely on other modes of communication. Talk about a film for ANYONE to enjoy and actually learn a thing or two along the way...so, here’s to sparkin’ up those sexual urges that have been layin’ low and embrace your sexuality in a healthy and positive way.

What I really like about the clips they have on the site (and of course there's video since first of all ASL is a language of motion and second of all ASL is not at all well-represented by ordinary text in English) is that the porn therein is just that: porn where the performers know ASL. Sort of hokey? Sure. Conventional sex and ordinary sexual situations? That too. In other words unlike a lot of specialty sites they're neither "exploiting" nor "celebrating" their different abilities, they're just doing what people who use ASL do... which is pretty much what hearing people do, only in another language.

Pretty cool.

(Hat tip for the link to Regina Lynn. Thanks, R.)

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon extends an old aphorism:

[T]hose who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, but also ... they are likely to make asses out of themselves and waste a lot of time doing it.

She said it here.

Can I just say how much I like the addition? It just perfectly captures the real horror progressives feel towards conservatism, primarily, but also a certain amount of liberalism: sitting around waiting for people to finish making like asses.

Tonight, attempting to stop repeating history, or at least waste anymore time, I've also bought Betty Freidan's 1963 classic The Feminine Mystique. Sort of like buying some of the classic computer science books, it's cool to see how complete and well-laid out their arguments were. Also in the face of actually *reading* their work it's hard to see exactly where feminism got its reputation for men hating, stridency, and "feminazi"-istry and all that. I mean, seriously! Just thumb through the book and ask how many people really, *really* want the world to work where husbands go out, bust their guts doing the work of two people while a perfectly qualified human being -- with (statistically speaking) a 50/50 chance of being the smarter, more capable, and even better educated -- is supposed to stay home and (literally! not figuratively, *literally!!!*) dither about the best way to arrange silverware in a drawer, schedule diaper changes, get lipstick and dinner on when the guy comes home, and *then not tell him anything she did because he's not expected to be interested?!?!?" Huh? Really? Does anybody want to go back to that? Even John Roberts? Even Rick Santorum? Even Rush fucking Limbaugh? No? I didn't think so. For crying out loud, even uuber-backlash/"post-feminist" troglodytes like Wendy Shalit, Kate Roiphe and other "opt-out revolutionaries" want more out of a return to "patriarchy" than that.

Lord knows no man in his right mind would. (That's not to say there aren't men who would. Just that if there are they're out of their minds.)

"Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, but also they are likely to make asses out of themselves and waste a lot of time doing it."

Very nicely put, Amanda.

The article, originally by Russ Parsons, in the Sept. 6th, 2006, L.A. Times but available via Joe Paris at the non-sex blog Naturalist's Garden, begins...

It is almost impossible to describe a fresh fig without veering into pornography. The skin is nearly human in its tenderness. And the pulp within is as luscious as some exotic cross between fruit jam and honey. You don't so much bite into a fig as engage it in a long, sweet kiss.

Original sourced to the L.A. Times but mirrored here.

The rest is a bit more prosaiac but yeah, fresh figs, especially the purple ones, are just like that. And even when perfectly ripe, figs have an indefinable earthy flavor and aroma that makes me imagine how mushrooms might smell if they were impossibly sweet instead of savory.

Ok, so according to Blue Gal of Be the Change, Baby (formerly know as Blue Gal in a Red State) today is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Well yar, ahoy, and all that... but I'd like to set our tongues on a sweeter path, for the voices we associate with pirates today was simply the way one spoke in Elizabethan England. For instance according to the sponsors of the Heart of the Forest Renaissance Faire's Elizabethan Language Guide

Elizabethan English did not sound like modern English as it is spoken in England – no Cockney, no Uppah Clahss refinement. It was an earthy, vigorous speech.

...

AI AND AY: As in the words maid and day. It’s a flat A followed by that peasanty long I, so it’s sounded maa-eed and daa-ee.

H AND R: These consonants are always pronounced. Never drop the H, as modern Cockneys do. It’s Head, not ‘ed, Here, not ‘ere. The letter R is pronounced with all the glory of a pirate on the high seas: fatherrrr and ratherrrr and herrre, not fathah or rathah or heah. Avoid the Scots burred R, though, unless you’re playing a Scot.

Find pronunciation, grammar, and other tips here.

And for practice might I suggest a bit of Romeo and Juliet? The following can be pronounced in any accent and still sound sweet, but as Romeo would have spoken like a pirate you try too.

I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II

On the other hand the following pretty much must be spoken like a pirate else the final lines don't rhyme:

O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households' rancour to pure love.

Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 3

Speaking of those last lines: not that I want to add any more ammunition to the "come" vs "cum" porn-spellilng debate but the pronunciation guide reminds us that *if* one were a pirate, or an Elizabethan, one would pronounce the Latin cum and the English come the same way

SHORT U: As in the words cup or run. Sounded like a long U or double O also, so they come out coop and roon.

Now having grown up in Souther Appalachia it's nice to learn have confirmed that ridge-runner speech isn't that far from the old King's (or Queen's) English

EA: As in the words head, bread, or dead. These are given a long A pronunciation, which makes them sound very American Country: haid, braid, daid.

But I'd be no more enamored of a Talk Like Gomer Pyle day than I am of a Talk Like a Pirate day and so I'd rather seal your lips with kisses, trap your tongue tip between my lips, and reduce your vowels from ayes to sighs. And if kisses would not suffice...

Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.

Source: William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, IV

... Cupid's left me such final arrows that I might fill your quiver overflowing.

I used to participate in Sam Sugar's Sugasm pretty regularly. Not exactly sure why I stopped but I thought I'd try it again. What appealed to me about it was Sam's direct-access approach -- the sole determinant is whether you choose to submit, the sole obligation is to repost the digest when your submission runs.

So anyway, for old time's sake here's...

The best of this week's blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #97? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

This Week's Picks
Tips and Sugestions on having sex with me.
"I'm a slut, but I'm an ethical one"
Wet
"You can smell this wet. It glistens on my thighs"
A Brief Meeting with the Girl Next Door
"You can pay me by teaching me how you like to be licked"
Mr. Sugasm Himself
Stacked Decks
Editor's Choice
Concentration?
Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Beautiful
How To Set Up a MFF/FMF Threesome (and Live)
"Sexual Fantasy # 1 : For Art's Sake"
Tara's Private Diary: Guilty Pleasures
"We're just good friend"
NSFW Pics & Videos
Half-Nekkid Footballer
A Jewell in bondage, pantyhose and latex
Pagan Lust
Pamela Anderson Showing Thong in See Through White Clothes
Valerie Vasquez Nude
Erotic Writing and Experiences
Hot House pt. 1
The Missing Sex Scene: Superman
Now
Syncronicity
Theater
To the ground floor
Vivid memories, solo vacation edition
Sex News & Satire
The Great Porn Debate
Half-Nekkid Schoolgirl
Retro Sex Blog Turns 1 Year Old!
What if...? Suzanne'ss story
BDSM & Fetish
Catalina loves Sexual Fantasies
Center peace
Full Circle - Part II
Good morning little schoolgirl
Hair
Ring
Sex Work
Labor Day - but not for sex workers?

Long-time readers might be happy to know that Goose and Gander of their epinomous blog have been on a bit of a tear lately after maybe a year of relatively low-key updates. For more recent readers Goose and Gander had a perfectly lovely, conventional marriage based on each partner's assumption that the other would be shocked by their sexually adventurous inclinations. And so each, sacrificing his or her preferences out of commitment their marriage and their partner, kept their own sexual lid screwed down tight. And came close to separating before one or the other (can't remember who) got brave enough to confess -- expecting rejection and instead discovering intense relief.

I think a lot of couples find themselves in that situation, fueled in part by wireframe-only drawing conceptions of marriage, or partnership, or parenthood, or adulthood that we mistake for the final results. And of those who "come out" to each other, an awful lot of them simply switch one set of conceptions for another, winding up perhaps physically less strained but not necessarily emotionally closer either.

Which is why I think Goose and Gander's story is so compelling: recognizing one set of mistakes they resolved not to simply take on another complete set, choosing instead to take what steps they took slowly, methodically, with lots of mutual check-ins, and some serious mutual generosity and respect. (It ought to be obvious that stepping outside of conventional boundaries *takes* generosity and respect for each other, otherwise you might find yourself escaping your relationships without having to move out or shake up your children's lives.)

Has their relationships been smooth sailing ever since? Has their every encounter with someone old, let alone someone new, been hassle free, risk free, jealousy free, or better-to-have-loved-and-lost-than? Sheeyeah right -- and they grew wings, won on American Idol, and never pay more than $1.30 for gasoline too. Oh wait! They, like we and everybody else, are humans involved with other humans so *of course* they've had burnt pancakes as well as perfect soufflés.

But more than anyone else I know they're doing it *together,* exploring a multitude of kinks including bondage play, spanking and other forms of S&M, and other partners together, separately, and in groups. You don't have to do any of this with your partners, even if you were so inclined. But if you did you'd do far worse than to choose to follow their example.

Anyway, the above has been a long preamble to the following snippet from Goose of Goose and Gander that nicely articulates what real adults can do, together, not just to discover but to *create* a community based as much on friendship as on mutual sexual interest.

I have to say though, that for all the punching, scratching, caning and general tingling of naughty bits, the part I liked best about the weekend was how much trust and love and fun there was. Its serious fun, without taking itself too seriously. There is always a ton of laughter and affection and ALWAYS seriously good food. Our little gang is awesome. Awww.....

Gander and I talked for a long time last night about the act of physical affection in today's culture. I mean, anyone can fuck and run, but how often do you get to cuddle, hold hands, stroke skin, touch hair, be in breath range with someone other than your child/pet/significant other.

Touch is radical, or it can be. I think that is what feels the most subversive to me and the most pleasing, about our group parties and hang outs: that I can touch and be touched by many and in many ways. It feels rather healing actually.

Plus, I like seeing people naked.

She says this and more here.

Finally, what I really appreciate about Goose's, and Gander's, posts is not only the acknowledgment of "strings attached" sex (as if there could be any other kind) but the real benefit stringiness brings to our relationships. The furtive, "no-strings" touch humans too often seek, too often behind their partner's backs? Not so much. This isn't to knock casual encounters for those who choose them, not at all, at all. Just a point that they're not as fulfilling *when you're starving for fulfillment!*

Which brings me back to Goose and Gander's original plight. The standard model would have been for each to slip behind each other's backs, perhaps through one of the extramarital personals sites that seemed to be in the newspapers earlier this month, and try to "get it while they can," for as long as they could, until one or the other slipped, and then deal with all the repercussions -- trading a smaller set of problems for perhaps several much larger ones. I think it's pretty cool that they've chosen to work together instead of separately.

So I just saw Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology who for more than three decades has done research into sex and relationships on both an academic and a professional basis (she's an advisor to a pretty successful online dating service.) She was reading from her new book, Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years.

And here's the deal about that.

1) I *could* say that I think it's an incredibly important book because it's a personal, passionate, teach-by-example pitch for sex after age 26 (the normal cutoff for almost all discussion of sexuality, outside of bloggers, in the English-as-a-first-language world.)

1a) Or after age 35, or 44, or 53. (Schwartz is 62.) Everything she recounts in her book took place after her marriage of 23 years dissolved amicably in her 50's.

1b) And both professionally and personally she's concerned and committed to getting over the nearly timeless notion that past some certain age women especially but also men lose neither desire nor desirability.

1c) All without at all excluding anyone younger.

2) I *could* say it's a wonderfully eyes-wide-open look at romance, online dating, triumphs and failures, and by-and-large thoroughly enjoyable sex without worrying about crossing "the number" that haunts so many especially younger women ("too many") or younger men ("not enough.")

3) I *could* say it's a wonderful, *personal* memoir from an accomplished academic who's previous 15 or so books, while often personable have been about her subjects than herself.

4) I *could* applaud the way she ends chapters with not only what she learned from her experiences but what we might learn as well.

5) I *could* even say there are passages so inspiringly erotic it's hard to imagine finishing some chapters wearing as fully dressed as you begin them in.

But mostly I say it's a wonderful book because she put her ass on the line and wrote it *in her own, widely, widely recognized name* instead of a pseudonym. And did so knowing full well that in September, after her book tour is finished, she'll once again lecturing groups of 700 undergraduates on principles of sociology. And taking questions.

Yes, yes, she's got a solid reputation. Yes, yes, she's single and her children are grown. And yes, yes, it might reveal "intimate" details about her life but the book is solidly in her field. As an anonymous blogger who increasingly chaffs at the confinement she's incredibly inspiring.

Anyway, I think Schwartz's Prime earns a spot in the Real Adult Sex library.

---

One last thing: yes, yes her messages may be most suitable to older heterosexuals but in this context, to paraphrase the old religious punchline, heterosexuals have a broken leg.

Ok, so the local paper's review of University of Washington professor Pepper Schwartz's new book Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years starts out a little personally...

Pepper, we hardly knew you!

OK, we might have suspected some of this long-private lusty life of yours, or maybe fantasized about it, since you were a University of Washington sociologist on the new frontiers of studying s-e-x as an academic discipline.

It's Seattle Post-Intelligencer book critic John Marshall's review. Read the rest here.

But then retreats into disappointing cliché

is a frank, shocking, even courageous memoir in this age of tell-all. Schwartz, a highly public person in Seattle and far beyond, examines the side of life that most people keep private and she does that with verve, guts and what seems utter openness, candor and vulnerability.

Shocking? Really? C'mon! I think I remember Audacia Ray talking about this when she was working on her masters in sexuality studies -- there was this huge assumption both within and without the academic community that sex researchers never actually have sex. (This is off topic but if there were any possible foundation for this at all, other than pure fantasy, it would be that to be professionally ethical in that field requires clear and strong boundaries between researchers and their subjects. Professional ethics would have nothing to do, however, with researcher's sexual behavior with anyone who's *not* a research subject. But I digress....)

Anyway, what, exactly, is shocking about a normal, healthy, intelligent, active and very well informed woman in her 40's, 50's, or 60's revealing that she's had many partners, that they haven't all been storybook romances nor were such romances always sought, that she had great fun in some and disappointment in others, blah, blah, blah, what else would we expect of a fully-functional human being?

I don't want to sound too hard on the reviewer, John Marshall. Aside from a mild bias towards disbelief -- which would be perfectly fine if the "no-sex" class paradigm were well-founded -- his review seems to let Schwartz's intentions shine through without much adulteration.

Note: Schwartz will discus "Prime" at 7:30 p.m. Monday at The Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., Seattle, WA; 206-624-6600. Schwartz has made some good contributions in the academic world and this sounds like a good book. If you're in the area drop by the bookstore Monday night and give her some support. I'm certainly going to try and make it.

If you have not visited the new site for Sex In the Public Square.org, I highly recommend that you do so. Elizabeth Wood of SexinthePublicSquare.com has teamed up with Chris Hall of Literate Perversions and Tom Joaquin of The Free Lance to create a place where people can freely write and talk about sexuality. The new site features forums, book reviews, a calendar of events, posts and links to various sex blogs. The mission statement of Sex in the Public Square.org states:

We believe that sexuality is a fundamental component of human life, and that it cannot be excluded from "polite conversation" without losing an important element of democratic participation. We are working to expand the space available for discussions of all aspects of sexuality, and to build communities where respect and inclusion are the norm. We also believe that talk about sex needn't always be "serious" in order to be "appropriate" and we welcome playful conversations that focus on the fun of sex as well as serious conversations that focus on things like policy, safety, and identity.

Goodness! Looks like my post casting aspersions on the motives of Sen. Brownback's pro-rape supporters got linked to in a blog roundup by BlueGal, guest posting at Crooks & Liars, a rock-solid political weblog. I'd like to thank them and say welcome to all the folks that have followed the link back here. Here's a follow-up post.

In my former post I reacted a bit harshly to Republican Presidential candidate and sitting Senator from Kansas Sam Brownback, who brought 500 men at the National Catholic Men's Conference to their feet with the following statement:

"Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that's been raped?" the Kansas Republican asked at the St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers gathering.

"We need to protect innocent life. Period," Brownback said, bringing the crowd of about 500 to its feet.

Read about it here.

While I stand by my previous post, this afternoon I'd like to take a little time questioning the consequences of his proposed policy rather than his motivation.

In the narrowminded fantasies of the forced-pregnancy crowd, making a rape survivor remain pregnant extends her assault from 30 seconds (the putative average) to 38 weeks (the average length of pregnancy to term.) And I *think* that's as far as their fantasies extend.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that they're assume that upon birth the newborn will be "voluntarily relinquished" to baby traffickers who, for an average fee of $15,000 will "place" the infant for adoption in the hands of a preferably affluent, white, conservative couple who can the child a "good home."

Because, after all, not even Republicans would expect a survivor of criminal sexual assault to actually keep and raise the unwanted, unplanned offspring of their rapist. Right? Oooh too bad! I mean, before the Supreme Court's Carhart v. Gonzales decision depriving women the right to terminate a pregnancy through "intact dilation and extraction" that *might* have been true. But since that decision no less than Justice Anthony Kennedy (suddenly not only a lawyer and judge but now also a practicing physician and a clinical psychologist) has decreed that it's not just obvious but outright *self-evident* that a woman will regret having an abortion. (Hormones and all that, and you know how temperamental them dames is and all *anyway!") And by that highest-court-of-the-land medical reasoning if it's hard to lose a child *before* it's born (and our personal experience it really *was* hard even after only 14 weeks although that was a planned, wanted pregnancy) then almost by definition it'll be even harder to lose the baby after carrying it for 38 weeks (some of them possibly while strapped to a gurney to keep Sen. Brownback happy), maybe the last two months or so on total, life-threatening pre-eclampsia-induced bed-rest, and anywhere up to 45 hours of increasingly intense contractions and pushing, to just blithely hand the newborn (everything but 23 original seminal half-chromosomes of which was tinctured from your own body) over to some legalized baby-snatcher who'll make a tidy "non-profit" profit from it... assuming she survives.

Based on Justice Kennedy's opinion, signed by a majority of the Supreme Court, any woman who "voluntarily relinquishes" a child is going to regret it *big time.* It's just nature's way y'know. And, in all seriousness this time, rates of "relinquishment" are way down -- from around 20% in 1973 for unmarried young women (the most typical victims) to less than 1% in 1995.

Although, of course, contrary to Sen. Brownback's hot fantasies, not all victims of sexual assault are either young or single. The rate of infant "relinquishment" for married women is even lower.

So....

If Justice Kennedy is right (and by law if not actual justice he is, at least till Congress changes it) then Senator Brownback's position condemns victims not only the the minutes of violent assault, not only to 38 weeks of unplanned, unwanted, and unterminable pregnancy, but also 18 years of missed opportunities, not to mention extremely awkward silences around the dinner table at Thanksgiving. All to be born (as it were) at the expense of the victim since, by coincidence I'm sure, Senator Brownback and his coven of forced-pregnancy enthusiasts also oppose funding for prenatal care, postnatal care, daycare, family-leave, healthcare for children, aid to families with dependent children, and (since the infant could easily be born with health issues) crutches for Tiny Tim. Heck, since my medical and psychological qualifications are exactly the same as Justice Kennedy's I'm going to say it's *self-evident!*

So anyway. If Justice Kennedy is right (I'm not saying he is) then giving a child up for adoption is even more of an affront to maternal human nature than having an abortion. Of course if he's wrong then the foundation for his decision (which Brownback backers claim applies to abortion techniques used as early as the 12th week of pregnancy) then there's really no legal foundation for prohibiting pregnant rape victims from aborting their criminally-imposed pregnancies.

I'm not exactly sure where Senator Brownback gets off wanting to have have it both ways. I'm not exactly sure why he and his supporters are so eagher to coddle rapists and help extend victim's torment by 18 years and 38 weeks (thought I've mentioned have my suspicions) but like most decent, moral, right-thinking people the're not just wrong, he's sick and wrong.

It's self-evident.

---

Final note: however faulty or misplaced, the Carhart vs. Gonzales decision Justice Kennedy's opinion is based on concern for women's feelings. The same can not be said, at all, at all, for Senator Brownback.

Yesterday I posted about how the common conceit that romantic sex must be wordless complicates everyone's response to so-called gray-area date rape. Catching up on other people's blogs it looks like problems with communications-free sex is just in the air. I couldn't be happier.

Annie Dennison of Smart at Love says

We know that a man - even a good one who loves us - cannot read our minds.

But that doesn't stop us from being disappointed occasionally when we have to spell out for him what we want or need in a relationship.

It seems to come down to two ideas about love that many of us buy into:

"If he loves me - and really gets who I am - he'll just know what makes me happy."

And...

"If I have to ask him for something that's important to me, it doesn't count."

I like to think of myself as a woman who doesn't unrealistically expect a man to be a mind reader for my wants and needs. After doing a recent mental inventory of my relationships, though, you know what I discovered?

In some areas I'm very good at spelling it out with a man, and in other areas I secretly wish he'd just know what I want and need.

Take sex, for instance.

...

Not asking in the first place is not a good thing, whether you're a woman or a man.

Read her clear-eyed post here

And RenegadeEvolution of The Fine Art of Free Speech and Dissent comes to the same point

…a lot of otherwise assertive, on top of it, alpha gals- and those who aren’t- turn a little odd in the bedroom. Suddenly, it’s like they cease being able to communicate, let alone express their desires. They are afraid or ashamed to ask for what they want, tell their partners what works for them or gets them off. They feel selfish or shameful or greedy if they ask for certain acts, or positions, or aspects of foreplay that they enjoy…because there is that lingering shame, or fear, or responsibility. That false yet still creeping theory that women aren’t necessarily supposed to like sex, or want sex, or enjoy sex. They are supposed to be the guardians of morality and all. I remember how floored I was when I read about how many women have never had orgasms, and every time I hear a woman say she’s never had one. My first initial thought is “what the hell are you doing wrong?” And I think I’ve come to the conclusion that what they are doing wrong is not talking. Being embarrassed to experiment, ask for, tell, explore, request, look into what might or will get the job done. I know grown women who will argue with anyone all the day long about anything but are embarrassed to ask their partners for cunnilingus. I know successful, otherwise bad ass females who are ashamed to admit that they like and enjoy certain positions more than others to their partners…let alone request them. I know women who pretty much never enjoy sex, but rather endure it, because they are embarrassed to ask for what they want, and would rather “suffer in silence” as it were than be seen as wanton, lustful…um…sexual and into it.

It makes me want to cry, really. Not all sex is great, even good…but suffering constantly through bad sex because you’re embarrassed to speak up and say what might make it better???

Read the quote in context here

I shouldn't have to say it, but just to be clear neither I, nor Dennison, nor RE are advocating relentless meta-level conversation *during actual sex.* Nor are we claiming that lovers never come together wordlessly. However, odds are that lovers, especially first-time-together lovers, have a much, much greater chance of actually *coming together* if they take the time to confirm to each other than sex is actually desired, that if they find themselves popped out of their erotic haze and back into everyday consciousness that they'll recruit their partner in order to get back into it, and that afterwards either during subsiding heartbeats and affectionate nuzzling or later over breakfast or lunch they discuss what went well and what they'd enjoy next time.

We're not saying you must *always* communicate. (Indeed Dennison adds "Asking for the tenth time - nagging - is not a good thing, either. We'll tackle that topic another time.") We're just saying that failing ever to communicate (and I would add *especially* the first time with a new partner) is a pretty terrible way to make sure everyone has a good time.

What's *your* story?

This post is about the Thinking Blogger Awards meme that was started by (I think I've got the name right) Ilker Yoldas. Ironically, Yoldas, like me, doesn't participate in many tag-someone-else memes.

Remittance Girl, Bonnie, Gillette, Anastasia, WryGirl, Cat, and Ephiphany Alone kindly named me to their lists, and several others have honorably mentioned me and I'd like to thank them all. Follow their links, too, not just because I think they're good bloggers but because the other bloggers they name are also pretty interesting.

[I ought to mention right here that while I'm flattered to have been named a thinking blogger I've had to rewrite this post after boneheadedly deleting instead of saving it. At least once. So far! So much for *that* label. :-) --fl]

Just about everybody in my blogroll has made me think -- sometimes deep thoughts, sometimes deeply erotic ones. That's generally how people get in there so it's neither exactly easy nor fair to single anyone out. But there are a few who, at least once, have totally turned me around and I'd like to thank them.

1) Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon. I recently did a grind through an extract of my blog, pulling out everyone I've linked to in posts and Marcotte was the hands-down winner. Reading her has helped me, more than anyone, realize that radical feminists care for men far, far more than the capital-P Patriarchy ever has or ever will.

2) Tie: Contemplating the now-mostly-quiet submissive Madelena of Myths and Metawhores made me completely rethink my relationship to sadomasochism, dominance, and submission. So did the enthusiastically masochistic Richard of Down on my knees.

3) Tie: Tony Comstock of Comstock Films and Sam Sugar of SugarBank two completely different pornographers who are both working to reshape the exhausted, commodifying tropes of pornography.

4) The non-sex blogger Matthew Yglesias. "Big Media Matt," a Harvard philosophy major turned political pundit (now blogging under the banner of The Atlantic Monthly) has made me think in terms of the *essential* picture and instead of the bigger one, as well as showing me more about the theory and practice of practical blogging, than anyone else.

5) Heather Corinna of Scarleteen who's made me think more about how we navigate the path from the polymorphous innocence of childhood to sexually healthy adulthood than anyone else in more than 30 years.

---

Update: Five isn't enough.

6) The now quiet DirtyTalkingGirl and Wendy of the now-dark Housewyfe & Caveman kickstarted my complete rethinking of gender-based "sexual imbalances" in relationships. If Joan Sewell had a blog (hint, hint) she'd be a very solid entry in this category as well.

7) And since this a sex blog , and since horniness tends to play a large role in sex, I really ought to name the blogger or bloggers who make me think delicious, fever-inspiring, "mmm, I'd like to try that" thoughts. For better or worse, though, men don't kiss and tell even when it's all only fantasy.

---

Official rules of the meme.

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

The meme started here.

Just to let you know, the charming, talented, and (more to the point) highly-qualified Heather Corinna of Pure as the driven slush has just come out with S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College.

Corinna is better known as the founder and coordinator of Scarleteen, by far the most respected and most-linked-to sex-education site for young people.

Now it might seem peculiar for someone who focuses so intently on real *adult* sex to take so much interest in a book for teenagers but there's highly intentional method to my madness. First, one of the welcome byproducts of real adult sex can be well-planned, very much wanted children. Second, because as I've said over and over, the key to a long, happy, and health adult sex life is a sexually sane, secure, and well-informed -- and unrushed! -- childhood. As a parent of two children who are merrily rocketing in the direction of their teenage years I'm especially looking forward to both the answers, and questions, this particular book provides. If you're in the same situation you're likely to welcome it as well.

I'll review it as soon as I can get a copy in my hot little hands. It's already available, as I said, from Amazon. (Note: I've used Scarletten's Amazon-affiliate code in that link. If you plan to buy a copy, click one of the links here and they'll get a well-deserved and much-needed commission.)

Also a note for Northwesterners. In her post Corinna says

The S.E.X. Book Release Party
Author reading, live sex and sexuality Q&A and book signing
Tuesday, May 8th: 7:00 - 10:00, all ages/ over 21 after 10:00

Karma Martini Lounge & Bistro, Seattle
2318 2nd. Avenue, Belltown (206) 838-6018

If I can swing it I'll be there.

Back in March bad influence girl wrote a simply brilliant post about the way many sex blogs evolve.

there is something about writing a sex blog that seems almost inevitable. this long, slow slide from hot smut into sexual introspection.

at first you are filled with erotic tales of wonder and sex. this applies especially (i suspect) to people who aren’t getting any but probably applies to everyone to some extent or another.

you tell your stories and you get out your fantasies, not all of them but a few favourites and then the thinking starts. the thinking because someone says that you write about something a lot or because you notice that you attract a lot of a certain kind of reader.

you post a little about your life and you tell stories and you start a ton of stories and then you look up and it’s six months later and your blog is changing.

not everyone’s of course, dirty little girl (of dirty little mind) and dirty boy still write fantastic smut and not much about their real lives at all.

others like anastasia (of sexualite) have fantastic and horny archives and are evolving into people who talk about sex in a more anthropological way… and i can feel that happening to me.

Read the rest of her excellent post here.

Golly, I've been meaning to write this up for so long. It's been stashed away, flagged for future reference in my RSS reader for nearly two months and between family vacations, leaving my old job, relocating this blog to a new server, troglodyte-friendly national news, and my recent relentless parade of dour grumblings it had become buried under nearly 1600 unread posts. Until today.

I couldn't have uncovered it at a better time! Compared to my early days I've wandered far afield of my original mix of tips, techniques, fantasies, flirtations, memoirs, and moralizing. Mostly it seems I've just been moralizing. (As a member of the first generation since the 1800s not to produce at least one minister or lay preacher in the family I'm sort of inclined that way.) Moralizing and punditry is all well and good but to a reader it's also got to get a little boring.

If you've been bored, my apologies. If you've *not* been bored don't worry -- one can hardly think about sex for long without the intrusion of society and politics. Either way, though, it's time I wrenched myself out of my rut and...

...slip into something a little more comfortable.

Hats off to Bad Influence Girl for providing me with, um, well, some positive influence. :-)

Earlier today I posted about Don Imus, the Duke Lacrosse team rape scandal, and the general problem of a culture that idolizes pre-adult snarkish rage, powerlessness, and inability to cope with real adult women. In that post I mentioned an article in The Atlantic Monthly that heavily influenced my thinking back in 1994. I was unable to find a link to the article, even behind AtlanticMonthly.com's subscriber firewall, even once I had the author's name (Steven Stark), the article's title (Where the Boys Are), and the issue of the magazine (Sept. 1994, Vol. 274 Issue 3, p18) or ISSN number (1072-7825.)

Fortunately several readers, including "MR" and "Ann," with library database access have come through. I'm eternally grateful.

Since the article's no longer available, and since I'd really, really like to encourage Atlantic Monthly to consider reposting it, I'm going to post some extended excerpts from the piece in order to a) give you the gist of the essay, b) whet your appetite to seek the rest of it, and c) give you a strong sense of where I'm often coming from when I talk about real adulthood and real adult sex.

Over the past several years American pop culture has spawned a wide range of wildly popular offerings that appear remarkably similar in sensibility. Although at first glance little appears to link the infamous syndicated-radio talk-meisters Howard Stearn and Don Imus with the movies Jurassic Park and Field of Dreams, the comedy of David Letterman and Jerry Seinfeld, the cartoon series Beavis and Butt-head and The Simpsons, and journalism's The McLaughlin Group, they in fact share a motif: though for the most part aimed at adults, these are all offerings that strongly echo the world of boys in early adolescence, ages eleven to fifteen. The unspoken premise of much of American pop culture today is that a large group of men would like nothing better than to go back to their junior high school locker rooms and stay there.

There is nothing new, of course, about men acting like boys, as anyone who has read the Odyssey or Don Quixote knows. But something different is going on today: never before have so many seemed to produce so much that is so popular to evoke what is, after all, a brief and awkward stage of life.

Take talk radio: One of it's most popular approaches today is to offer the listener a world of close-knit boyish pals. The style of Stern and Imus is that of the narcissistic class cutup in seventh grade: both sit in a playhouse-like radio studio with a bunch of guys and horse around for hours talking about sex or sports, along with political and show-biz gossip, all the while laughing at the gang's consciously loutish, subversive jokes. To the extent that women participate, they are often treated to a barrage of sexual and scatological humor. It's no wonder the audience for both shows is predominantly male.

...

One of Letterman's contributions to late-night entertainment has been to take its humor out of the nightclub-act tradition -- replete with all of Johnny Carson's jokes about drinking or adult sex -- and place it firmly in that prankish, subversive, back-of-the-classroom seventh-grade realm that has become so culturally prominent. Although Letterman rarely greets women guests with filthy jokes (you can't do that on network television), he often treats them with the exaggerated deference and shyness typical of fourteen-year-old boys.

...

Even popular "adult" [here meaning only "for grown ups" --fl] movies, such as City Slickers and Big, often revolve around the premise that once a man has passed through puberty it's pretty much all downhill.

...

Also in journalism as currently practiced, reporters often set themselves up as passive observers of events and then spend much of their time identifying with those who exercise real power -- a point of view reminiscent of the way a young teenager views his parents.

...

Still, if early-adolescent boys are notable for their inclinations to look at dirty pictures and talk about sex, they aren't quite ready to do something about it responsibly with a woman. That propensity to be in the world of sex but not really of it is certainly a sign of the times.

...

That idea [that adolescence is the stage in life where one is acutely aware of being powerless and thus most subversive of society at large] also fits a wider cultural mood, always somewhat prevalent in America, that exalts the outsider. Such an anti-establishment mood, rooted in powerlessness, is particularly strong today... Whether the subject is how the tabloid press now eagerly tears down public figures... or the rise of anti-establishment [at the time meaning right-wing extremist] talk radio... America is full of the defiant, oppositional anger that often characterizes the early adolescent.

...

That anger is also an asset for TV programmers in the cable era. Television, of course, tends to encourage a kind of passivity that isn't ultimately much different from the angry powerlessness early teens tend to feel. Beavis and Butt-head have become cultural symbols precisely because a nation of couch potatoes feels like a nation of fifteen-year-olds.

...

It also doesn't hurt that adolescents tend to be what advertisers call "good consumers" -- narcissistic, with a fair amount of disposable income, and with no one but themselves to spend it on. A culture that is obsessed with this stage of life is arguably in a better frame of mind to buy -- to run up the limit on Dad's (or Uncle Sam's) credit card -- than one that worships, say, thrifty middle age.

...

In a country whose citizens have always had tendencies that remind observers of those of a fourteen-year-old boy, it would be wrong to lay all the blame for society's vulgarity and violence, its exhibitionist inclinations, it's fear of powerful women, its failure to grow up and take care of its real children, and its ambivalence about paternal authority at the feet of Howard Stern, John McLaughlin, and Jerry Seinfeld. But they have helped, and many of us have willingly obliged.

People with access to library databases may be able to find photreproductions of the essay here. Otherwise it looks like a signup,and possibly a subscription is required.

All pretty cool stuff.

I'd just like to add two semi-related points:

1) It may sometimes be disgraceful but it's in no way dishonorable to behave like a 14-year-old boy *when you're actually 14-years old!* It's a generally hellish age. No more than it's dishonorable for a two-year-old to poop his or her diaper. It's no less unseemly, no more edgy, and no more subversive, however, for a 24-year-old man (let alone a 70-year-old like Don Imus) to behave like a 14-year-old than to behave like a 2-year-old. (Though I'm confident some shock-jock somewhere has pooped a diaper on live radio.)

2) Not to let women off the hook either. The middle-aged Ann Coulter's adolescent-styled tantrums, preenings, and cliquéish side-taking are no less dignified.

Update: Via Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly see a comparable discussion of the commercial Imus/immaturity approach from Phil Nugent

The talk radio world, one that Imus worked hard to shape, is one where overpaid white guys who did well in the voting for the title of "Class Clown" at their respective high schools sneer at blacks, women, gays, what have you, in a dismayingly self-congratulatory tone.

....I remember that when Howard Stern began a short-lived tenure of having his show broadcast in New Orleans, he held a press conference, and one of the local reporters asked him how he would compete with the hilarious, daring wild man talk guy who was already doing a New Orleans morning show, and whose name escapes me. Stern, who'd clearly never heard the local guy's name, said something like, what's he do, like a Southern guy and a black guy and a gay guy, all the while doing high-school level impersonations of a drawling hick, a Stepin Fetchit type, and a nelly dude, which did indeed sound exactly like the local guy's repertoire of funny voices. I remember that the New Orleans reporter was stunned by this, and seemed genuinely unaware that there was some yokel doing the same basic act at some radio station in every city in America.

Update: Cool. The adolescence-by-proxy narrative on Imus is really starting to seep through the Band-Aids now. Via Adele M. Stan of TAPPED here's an excerpt of an NPR interview with 'winger columnist David Brooks

"You know, most of us who are pundits are dweebs at some level. And [Imus] was the cool bad boy in the back of room," Brooks said. "And so, if you're mostly doing serious punditry, you'd like to think you can horse around with a guy like Imus."

(In her post Stan highlights the impact of pre-adult ideology by quoting a male colleage, ""This whole town runs on people trying to work out the issues they've been harboring since high school," and adding "Say, did I ever tell you about the time the boys wouldn't let me on the debating team?")

Again, I'm just sayin'

Melissa Gira of Sexerati has written a very cool manifesto for real adult sex. Four sterling paragraphs that begins with an assertion about the importance of communication about sex, a reminder that communicating unjustified shame for others or unjustified fears about our inadequacies limits all of us, a reminder that we don't learn to enjoy sex by just reading, watching, or talking about it (any more than we learn to ride a bike by watching others), and a final "assignment" to

...ask someone that you want to kiss for a kiss. Be honest, straightforward, direct. Be seductive, shy, cute. Be whatever comes up naturally. The important thing to do is get over that fear of asking. The world will not end, and hey, you might even have a good time. If we all do it, we might all have a better time. Kiss someone for the sake of it, for the sake of sex, for the sake of your own well-being. Then tell us how it went, okay? We're all in this sex smart thing together.

It's short. It's sharp. Read the whole thing here.

Best of all she's not advocating that we all go out and hook up more, she's not saying we should do anything better, or something right or that we're doing anything wrong, she's not expecting anyone to push their sexual boundaries, and especially she's not saying go listen to a bunch of experts tell you how it is. Instead all she's only asking that we ask for a kiss from someone we want to kiss. For a start.

High marks all around, Melissa. It's all I can do to keep from quoting the whole thing here. So go read the whole thing there.

[Via Amber Rhea. Thanks, Amber. --fl]

I had a wonderful time yesterday in Portland, Oregon, about 200 miles south of my home town. It's a beautiful city, home to a bunch of cool bloggers, one of the wiggiest highway systems you've ever seen, the only theoretically active volcano in the lower 48, and the you-gotta-see-it-to-believe it Powell's Bookstore.

It's so big that the main store, which last I was there already took up much of two blocks, has several also-very-large satellite stores. Which is where I got to hear Rachel Kramer Bussel, Portland local Shanna Germain, and LA's Stan Kent read from Rachel's twin anthologies, He's on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission and She's on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission..

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The reading was way better attended than the store had expected -- there were maybe 30 chairs and about 50 people there, which, I gather, is a pretty good turnout. The audience was about two-thirds women, the average age was somewhere in the high 30s to low 40s.

Rachel started out reading sections from Donna George Storey's "Yes," about an impromptu two-and-a-half-way from He's on Top, and ended with her own (pseudonymous) "Feeder" from She's on Top about a dominant woman who shares a cooking and hand-feeding fetish with her partner. (Mmm, sex and food!)

Shanna Germain read from "The Sun is an Ordinary Star" from He's on Top, a sweet and very erotic story about a top coming to terms with his partner's just-concluded lumpectomy and chemotherapy.

Stan Kent, who as a boy went to an archetypical English boy's school, complete with paddling, read a funny, barkingly pornographic, and highly convoluted story about a schoolmistress who turns the tables on the "head student" of a kinky, BDSM-intensive "executive training" school. (The convolutions involved Kent trying to fit his story inside the tropes of a boy's school without going to jail for writing anything to do with, well, an ordinary schoolmistress disciplining an actual boy who'd previously gotten the drop on her.)

So, you might ask, was it worth driving the equivalent of Boston to New York and back in a day worth it? Definitely. The weather might have been worse but it's a lovely drive even in the rain. I had a great time and it was good to see Rachel again anyway. It was also the first time I've really gotten off the main drag and taken in the town -- it's got some extremely cool neighborhoods, sort of like a cross between Greenwich Village, Vancouver, B.C., and Gray's Harbor County (logging-port home of Kurt Cobain) all rolled into one.

Cheri of "Secret Lovers Lane" has a great post about the perils, and the humor, of sex and aging.

The old expression "Man Plans and God Giggles"

My girlfriend and I were just on the phone hysterical laughing. Actually she screamed at me for making her laugh so hard. Ironically, I was just stating facts:

The last week has been filled with examples that I am getting fucking old. the good news is that my friends are getting old with me! Where we used to discuss the children and career plans, we are now discussing our aging twats and body parts.
...

Ironically, now that I want to have sex....I am enjoying it so much. God decides to throw a monkey wrench into it. The part of my body that I rarily had cared about during most of my marriage has become an important part of my affair. I like using it now. So, it not working right is certainly putting a damper on my affairs and my fucking!

Then there is my girlfriend....she is fucking like a bunny with her boyfriend. Her problem,,thinning walls. Mine are too thick, hers are too thin. She also didnt use it for years and now she is having problems...

So here we are...two old ladies...finally enjoying sex and getting eaten out and well the damn twat is aging.

Read all about it here.

The cool, cool thing about Cheri's post is she supports and gets support from her friends, including at least one male friend who's begun having problems with his erection, and get gets it, gets that there are inconveniences, and sometimes scares and near-misses, and cracks wise about it instead of panicking, mourning, or writing herself off. *That's* that it's all about, boys and girls, friends and neighbors, lovers and strangers. Considering the alternative, aging isn't so bad at all, at all. It's all about what you make of it. And while you're at it, might as well make love while the sun shines.

I've said over and over that the key thing about sex bloggers is we're just like everybody else except we're willing to talk about it. Dirty. Filthy. Princess. gets it.

...before this blog, there were times when I wished I had a friend I could be more open with about sex. I do have one friend that I can occasionally say a few things too, but it's difficult. I can't be as open about it as I can be here. I mean, it would just feel very strange to go into as much detail as I can through my alter-ego, dirty filthy princess.

Possibly the second most wonderful thing about sexblogging is that I don't feel like the only one anymore.

...

I've been doing this sexblog thing for a while now. You'd think that I would have learned these lessons long ago. Of course I am not the only one! With all the people in this world, odds are there are at least some people out there that feel the same way I do, no matter what it is.

But isn't that a very human thing? To feel like you are the only one to feel a particular way. To feel alone.

That's why sexblogging is so great. I don't have to continue feeling alone. By talking to others that enjoy sex as much as I do I can realize, I'm not strange, I'm not odd, I'm not deviant.

Read her whole post here.

I like DFP a lot. She's a blazing hot, sharp as a tack, and cheerfully monogamous writer and a genuinely nice person to boot. (Check out her take on sex for herself here. It's about another one of those great simultaneous scale-of-one-to-ten situations that makes real sex... well... *real!*)

Just a quick note. On a whim the other day I picked up Joan Sewell's I'd Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido.

As of roughly the halfway point, at least, it's the most insightful book about modern sexuality I've ever read.

Which sort of makes sense when you think about it. Who do you think really knows more about sex, someone who has it often, effortlessly, and enthusiastically or someone who has to psyche him or herself up for it every time? (Answer: It's incredibly unlikely many read Ronald Reagan's An American Life but as many people will still be reading de Tocqueville's 1838 Democracy in America in 2238 as are reading it today.)

I'm not going to recommend I'd Rather Eat Chocolate till I've finished it, but I'm almost blackening the margins with notes and ideas for posts.

It's worth noting that even when she makes a logical or process error, and I believe she sometimes does, they're excellent, instructive errors. (Example: she disregards one TV talk show about women who complain they have higher libidos and focuses the rest of a chapter on a different show that says women's libidos are "naturally" lower than men's. That's a rather glaring error, but a perfect illustration of the power of narrative stereotypes: it's *extraordinarily* difficult to see outside stereotype!)

More often, though, she's laser accurate, dismantling stereotypical edifices (e.g. John Gray's Mars/Venus in Marriage, Barbara DeAngelis's What Women Want Men to Know to name the first two) with pointed observations. Example related to a sex therapist she and her partner consulted:

Well, I thought, [her partner's] drive was not affected by fear of damnation, an absent father, feeling ugly, fear of rejection, and one heart-wrenching case of unrequited love. [These were experiences she had in common with her partner. --fl] If that was the case, then why did [their sex therapist] think that anything and everything that crossed my path was responsible for my lax libido?

Even better, when she reveals her inner processes I find myself saying (scribbling in the margins, actually) "no! no! no! don't go in there" like a pre-teen watching a monster movie. But in the book, if not her real life, she's got the courage to talk about *what she's thinking* instead of what she imagines she's *supposed* to be thinking.

At least for the first half I'm just saying it's a pretty brilliant book. However it turns out it's already the likely source of half a dozen future posts.

Before I thank anyone for anything I've got to take a moment for some serious, serious hat tipping. The world is full of wonderful bloggers of all sorts. I'd like to call your attention to a handful of genuinely excellent, diverse, and thoughtful male sex bloggers. If you haven't bookmarked them you should. If they're not in your blogroll they deserve to be.

• Jefferson of OneLifeTakeTwo is a man after my own heart. A good father, an organizing force, the center of a vast and diverse network of interconnected bloggers, and an impishly polymorpohous pervert.
• Phillip of HotAction is an inspired, creative, take-some-prisoners multimedia genius.
• Semi-celibate Man of Semi-Celibate Erotica is a man after my own heart. He turns the lemons of involuntary semi-celibacy into insightful, erotic, and vitality-packed lemonade.
• V of Grace's Plaything is that rarest of male sex bloggers, an erotic submissive. It's not that there aren't plenty of submissive men in the world, but there aren't many who write about it. Or write so well.

Hats off to four firm, upstanding members of the sex-blogging community.

Update: Doh! I was all flustered and a little rushed this morning when I composed this and I inadvertently mashed up Semi-celibate Man with Artful Dodger of The Secret Brain, another genuinely wonderful male sex blogger who's highly worth bookmarking and blogrolling.

I want to thank those of you who nominated me for Best Male Sex Blog in Meme's Dirtyspoke 2006 Best Sex Blog awards. Thank you so much! The voting booth is now open.

If you're visiting for the first time here's the scoop. I seem to write mainly about the social theory and politics of sex and relationships. I also post erotic fantasies and memoirs, tips and techniques and erotic self-photography. Links to these and other categories are in my sidebar on the left where you'll also find links to several hundred genuinely interesting writers and photographers.

There are some other absolutely wonderful nominees in five categories. I would deeply appreciate your vote in the Male Sex Blogger category and the other nominees in all categories would appreciate your vote as well. Voting begins today and ends January 31st.

From my Figleaf in a (birthday?) suit photoset.

I'm trying in vain to find a decent 2007 desk calendar -- but in my searches, I just found the 2007 Girls of Engineering Wall Calendar: Featuring the Smartest and Sexiest Women From the Univeristy of Illinois College of Engineering! And... *adjusts glasses, fondles calipers* someone mind the machine shop, I've got some "research" to do over at the Girls of Engineering site!

She said it here.

And just the other day I found the (PG-Rated) Babes with books, hosted by Hardley Surton.

Yeah, they're still cheesecake and I know that's going to bug some people *but!* If you want to loosen a obsolete fence post that's stuck in the mud it helps to push it both back and forth to loosen it a little. Push one way to remind people that attractive women can be smart, push the other way to remind them smart women can be attractive. Give a choice between being smart and good looking, I'd pick smart every time, but what people gotta get over is the notion that it's a choice in the first place. We are who we are.

In her blog, pure as the driven slush, Heather Corinna, who also runs the premier sex-information-for-the-underaged Scarleteen mentions that donations to the site are way down.

This sucks all the more when in the last couple of days, you've started reviewing revenue for the year to try and prepare for the hell that is taxes and discovered that despite the ever-growing traffic and helping as many as 25K in users a day at Scarleteen in the last year, donations this last year were even more dismal than the year before, something you didn't want to think was even possible. I feel so good about doing what I do, I do: but there is something so effing pathetic and really degrading about having a site with that sort of traffic, which performs that sort of service, which you went across the bloody country to defend your right (and everyone else's) to net even as much income as to just pay its costs, but which some months, grant notwithstanding, has generated as little revenue as $25 a month in donations.

You can see the rest of her post here.

As a former teen, and as a former teen peer counselor, I can't say enough good things about Scarleteen. It's a wonderful resource for the people *my* blog, by title-definition, is not for. We all have bad days, bad months, bad years. And after the last election, plus holiday expenses, plus end-of-year taxes, plus the regular hassles of making ends meet a lot of us are feeling very tapped out. But this is a pretty important project for those who are not yet real adults.

Their donation page says

Scarleteen is a privately owned, volunteer-run sexuality clearinghouse for teens and young adults that receives no federal, state, or local funding. We are funded solely by private donations.

Our staff often work long hours as a volunteer effort, our bills are paid either out-of-pocket, or by one of our other ventures, and most of the time, we operate at a deficit. If you know our site, its high reputation in the too-small field of online young adult sex education and its importance in starting that wave, and you've read articles like Why Scarleteen? or A Calm View from the Eye of the Storm at Scarlet Letters (reprinted here for Scarleteen), you know how important the service that we provide to thousands of teens each day for free is, especially given how many schools and communities no longer offer their youth any comprehensive sex education whatsoever. Many of you have asked how you can help by helping to fund this valuable service.

Donations make all the difference. You can donate as little or as much as you'd like easily and securely with Paypal or your credit card, and help us out at Scarleteen*. Even a small donation makes a big difference: if all of our users from just one week donated just five bucks, we could pay our operating costs for a full year!

See the rest of the page, and find the "Make a Donation" button, here.

I'm personally inviting those who can to join me in donating what you can to help sustain this highly worth cause.

[Final update: It's the last day to cast your votes for best blogs. Contest rules say you can vote for each blog once a day so if you've voted before, it's ok (in fact encouraged) go ahead and vote again.--fl]

It's time once again for the annual Weblog Awards, an Emmy- or Oscar-like, broad-based attempt to identify the best bloggers in a variety of categories.

It's pretty mainstream so there's no separate category for sex, or sexuality, or sexual-politics bloggers. That doesn't mean none are in competition, though. (In fact some of them are highly competitive!)

The voting system is fairly sophisticated. In order to help lower-traffic sites compete with those with higher traffic they're letting individuals vote once a day, on the assumption that multiple votes by dedicated readers of smaller sites will offset the votes of greater numbers of incidental readers on the larger sites.

Along with the usual, predictable, top-tier sites like DailyKos and InstaPundit there are a number of smaller categories. I'd like to call your attention to some of these and invite you to lend your support.

• You can vote here for Violet Blue's Open Source Sex podcasts.
• You can vote here for Blue Gal of Blue Gal.
• You can vote here for Lindsay Beyerstein's Majikkthise.
• You can vote here for the group bloggers at Feministe.

And, of course, if you or someone you love (either literally or figuratively) is in the running, let me know in comments and I'll add them to the list.

Voting ends Dec. 15th. Vote early. Vote often. Thanks!

[Note: I'm going to bump this back to the top roughly once a day as a reminder. And again, let me know of other deserving bloggers in the running. --fl]

This week's best of the sex blogs from the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasmer participants. Want in Sugasm #58? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

This Week's Picks
The Other Side of Hotwifery (http://junohenry.wordpress.com)
“Since he had been so cavalier about it prior to my ever actually going through with such an event, I had given almost no thought to how it might affect him.”
The Blender (http://radicalvixen.com/blog)
"You want to pick me? Did I win a contest?"
Meeting in a Car - part one (http://emergingontheotherside.blogspot.com)
“His tongue teased hers, and her lips teased his in retaliation”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Welcome to Googlestan! Google Purges Adult Content from Search Results (http://sugarbank.com)

Editors' Choice
Desire so overwhelming I could do anything (http://sugarbutch.blogspot.com)
Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
A Way With Words: Aural Fixation (http://exploreros.blogspot.com)
Breaking the golden rule, Part I (http://www.betweensheets.net)
Confronting Things Head-On: How We Got Here (Part 1 of 2) (http://perverselypoly.blogspot.com)
Sex Addict?! (http://www.model-chat.com)
Sex and the Movies (http://hard-and-fast.blogspot.com)
“Tossing the Salad” (http://sexeteria.net)

Sex & Politics
Anti-Anti-Pornography, Part III: A Concept (http://www.teen-porn-site.com/blog)

NSFW Pics (& videos)
First alone thanksgiving (http://stealthbombshell.blogspot.com)
Get a grip! (http://kitchen-girls.blogspot.com)
Half-Nekkid Sex Blogging (http://www.tarasnaughtyshop.com)
Happy HNT - Sexy Holiday Stockings (http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com)
“I Like Men, Women, Angels…” (http://totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
MILF sucks on a cock (4) (video) (http://deepthroat.ilovejulienight.com)

BDSM and Fetish
A Nawty Story: Kitten’s Reward and Punishment (http://anawtymouz.blogspot.com)
On Loan, Finale (http://engrailed.com)

Sex Work
What Happened to Good Old Fashioned BDSM? (http://lipstickexplosion.com)

Erotic Writing and Experiences
A Break From The Dance (http://mandyseroticlife.blogspot.com)
Crush - Part II (http://lafillemariee.blogspot.com)
Eyes (http://designingintimacy.blogspot.com)
Guy #2: November 24, 2006 - The Swing (http://mysexualmisadventures.blogspot.com)
He Says (http://sexcakes.blogspot.com)
I am yours (http://wetbeyondbelief.blogspot.com)
Late Night Meeting (http://dirtylittlecockslut.blogspot.com)
Lori - Part II (http://masterenigma.blogspot.com)
My girlfriend the stripper, part 1 (http://erotischism.blogspot.com)
Phoenix Has a Long Night at The Office (http://dirtydetails.blogspot.com)
The School Camp (http://wanklog.blogspot.com)
Why I Love My Job… (http://stilettodiaries.blogspot.com)

Sex News & Reviews
Girls with Guns: There’s Nothing Sexier (http://www.taratainton.com)
Most Erotic Sex Movie Scene (http://ncnewcpl4u.blogspot.com)
Ray Spade Retro Collection (http://retrosexblog.com)
Welcome to “Sir Dirty Joke” by Sir Dirty Joke (http://sexblogwelcome.blogspot.com)
Why You Shouldn't Spend Money On SkinVideo (http://ylovesporn.com)

Sexy Humor
What did Simon Cowell do before he was famous? (http://sextoysinsider.com)
Cute HNT pic courtesy of Texas Spitfire.

As long as we're celebrating returns to health we can breathe a sigh of relief for Twisty of I blame the patriarchy who's latest tests for cancer came back negative.

I just wanted to say that after a very tense time, much radiation therapy, and one last big scare, it looks as though the sexy, erudite, and thoroughly admirable Minerva of A woman of many parts has been given a free bill of health.

Thank goodness.

Whether she blogs another word in her life or not I just want to wish her the very best of the rest of a very long and happy life.

Author Hanne Blank has posted an internship opportunity on her blog (which I just discovered a few minutes ago.)

Independent Scholar/Writer Seeking Research Interns

Writer and historian Hanne Blank, author of several books including the unprecedented new history Virgin: The Untouched History (Bloomsbury, March 2007), is looking for two research interns, one for Spring 2007 and one for Summer 2007. Interns will be working with Blank on research for her next nonfiction book, a history of heterosexuality and heteronormativity in the West. Past research interns have worked an average of 5-10 hours per week. Hours are generally flexible.

Applicants should have: excellent research skills (library and Internet), understanding of bibliographic form, regular (at least daily) computer/Internet access, available access to at least one research library, and excellent written and verbal skills. Candidates also should be good at working unsupervised, making judgment calls about information quality, comfortable working on issues of human sexuality, and reliable communicators. Foreign language skills are a big plus, particularly German, French, and Latin.

These internships are unpaid, but I happily extend ongoing support (including letters of recommendation) to my interns and former interns. Some former research interns who have worked for me are now employed by Elsevier, NYU Press, National Public Radio, and other prestigious businesses in the information and publishing sector; others are excelling in graduate school.

Applicants may be either local (Baltimore, MD) or long-distance, with a slight preference for local applicants.

To apply, please send a letter indicating your interest to hanne at-sign hanneblank dot com. Please describe your skills and background, the reasons you are interested in this internship, and be sure to indicate whether you are applying for the Spring or Summer internships.

More about Hanne Blank, including contact info for interested students, here

If I were on the eastern seaboard and had access to a research library I'd jump at the chance.

AlwaysArousedGirl illustrates each of her posts with a photo she takes in her garden.

I was out the other night as it was snowing, looking for an HNT photo opportunity. This was before I got the brainstorm that led to this week's HNT photo proper.

Anyway it was so beautiful out under our big Douglas fir with the snow laying lightly on the understory plants. If I'd had more time, and better light, and if the kids hadn't been running wild in the street with their snow saucers I'd given them the photographic attention they deserved.

All the more reason to appreciate AAG's photos.

Oh, and about the bare feet. Growing up in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains I often delivered my paper route barefoot through November. I think old habits just die hard.

So while I've been pushing lingerie one way, I just wanted to point out that Eva of Evanescent Imagination is pushing it another way: she's wearing nothing but silk leaves. As with all good lingerie it's a stirring effect!

Another link I found with Google News: Via AllHeadlineNews.com

October 14, 2006 6:00 p.m. EST

Som Patidar - All Headline News Staff Writer

Voorhees, NJ (AHN) - A New Jersey Church's advertisement campaign is attracting people by promising that God wants you to perform 'pure sex'.

Discovery Church has a billboard advertisement to promote a Web site, www.mysexlifestinks.com .

"Sex wasn't invented in a dark alley behind a porn shop. It's part of God's design. In fact, this may shock you, but God wants you to have great sex," a provocative message on Web Site.

I didn't want to clip the whole thing so read the final paragraph here.

The website, My Sex Life Stinks has a slickly produced flash presentation with perfectly sensible quotes like "Is your sex life a bore / a chore / feeling like you wanted more" and "After all, sex isn't supposed to leave you feeling guilty, or empty, or frustrated." Then it redirects you to a Discovery Church web page that begins

We're not afraid to talk about it!

Sex wasn't invented in a dark alley behind a porn shop. It's part of God's design. In fact, this may shock you but...God wants you to have GREAT SEX.

Are you ready for a church that actually presents relevant everyday topics about life? What is more relevant than a talk about sex?

See the rest of the page here.

Sermons in the five-week series include

- The Greatest Sex You'll Ever Have - 10/15/06
- The Language of Lust - 10/29/06
- What Happens in Vegas WON'T Stay in Vegas - 11/5/06
- Porn: What's the Big Deal? -11/12/06
- Straight Talk for Men and Women - 11/05/06 and 11/12/06

Protestant denominations have generally supported *mutually fulfilling* sex within marriage for at least the last 250 years, and it was actually a doctrine among the ostensibly blue-nosed early Puritans. But the site doesn't have the actual sermons online and from the intro alone I really can't get a take on which way, exactly, they propose taking their "good sex" message.

Chances are almost any church is going to have a more constrained vision of sex than the average relationship or sex blogger but that's not the point. If their intention is to clear the air about sex *at all* I'm all for it. Infidelity and divorce rates become progressively higher the more devout the demographic. And consequently I want to be as supportive as possible of any meaningful dialogue at all, any non-romanticizing acknowledgment at all in the religious community.

If you're in that part of New Jersey and can check it out, or if you otherwise know more about this, let me know in comments.

The best of the sex blogs this week by the bloggers who blog them. Featuring the top 3 posts voted by Sugasmer participants. Want in Sugasm #48? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

This Week's Picks
Lazy Sunday (http://www.chillivanilla.com)
"I flick my thumb across your clit, as if I were lighting a match, which, in many ways I am."

The Secret (http://confessions112.blogspot.com)
"I came back to the bed and started to lavish kisses on him, savoring the inches of skin on him that I knew were mine and mine alone."

You’re all I want (http://theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
"Go to the couch. Bend over. For me."

Mr. Sugasm Himself
How to Cure Female Ejaculation (http://sugarbank.com)

Editors' Choice
Fetish, Fashion and The War On Terror (http://adelehaze.com)

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

BDSM and Fetish
Double Penetration (Fangs & Cock) (http://la-day.blogspot.com)
Hurt Me, Please (http://everythingoze.blogspot.com)
Isabella’s Eyes - Part VIII (http://nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com)
Morning quickie (http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com)
The weekender #4: The beginnings of our lifestyle (http://seanandmel.blogspot.com)

NSFW Pics
Asian 1 on 1 (http://www.internetisforporn.com)
Myspace Christine Dolce Nude (http://www.thesexbox.com)

Erotic Writing and Experiences
At a bar in a strange city (http://erotischism.blogspot.com)
Be Sure to Tip Your Waitress (http://sabrinainstockings.com)
I *not only* write porn, but I also just do it. (http://eternalapprentice.blogsome.com)
Insatiable (http://talktovanessa.com)
Just for the taste of her (part two)…and breakfast (http://dirtydetails.blogspot.com)
Last Night (http://mandyseroticlife.blogspot.com)
Mr Henry writes debauched dialogue (http://junohenry.wordpress.com)
The Rain (Part I) (http://grlnxtdoortx2.blogspot.com)
Sexwars (http://dirtyandthirty.blogspot.com)
A visit (http://edtimestories.blogspot.com)
You Can’t Come To My Room Tonight (http://makemycopcome.blogspot.com)

Sex News and Sexy Reviews
Fat Man In A Barrel (http://www.orgasmarmy.com)
Meet the Sperm Testers (http://www.TaraTainton.com)
Product Review - Head Candy (http://shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
Sex and Booze (http://www.seskuality.com)
Sex Toys For Vacations (http://sultry.naughtyblog.net)
Straight Porn Review: Squirts So Good (http://blog.johnqafterhours.com)

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Ewww, your parents had sex? (http://www.realadultsex.com)
Fucking To Heal (http://fuckingtheministersdaughter.blogspot.com)
Half-Nekkid and Tending to Nature (http://www.TarasNaughtyShop.com)
I’ve Been Outed…. AND I’m Back….. (http://totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
No Rumors (http://femmefataleteen.blogspot.com)
The origins of the cane (http://www.spankingwriters.com/blog)
Screaming Orgasm- it’s not just a drink at the bar (http://ellabeecoquette.blogspot.com)
Sex and cupcakes (http://lustylady.blogspot.com)
A Sexual Theory (http://www.seska4lovers.com)
Snip-Snip, Quack-Quack-Quack (http://virtual-sex-tourist.com)
Where I'm coming from (http://principalquattrano.com/blog)
Why do I masturbate? (http://wanklog.blogspot.com)

When I was figuring out how to include a blogroll to RealAdultSex, Feministing was in the first batch.

One of their key contributors is named Jessica. I've admired her fiery-bright (and often just plain fiery) writing for as long as I've read her.

I learned this morning that she evidently has boobs. Even worse, she had boobs when she and Firedoglake, Eschaton, Daily Kos, AmericaBlog, MyDD, LiberalOasis, Seeing the Forest, The Carpetbagger Report, Mahablog and TalkLeft met former President Bill Clinton.

Others in the room may also have had boobs but Jessica has evidently been singled out for special criticism, possibly because she's evidently either young, or attractive, or both. (Amber has the scoop.)

I'm given to understand that approximately half the population either has, or has had, or will have boobs, and I will take it as given that anyone named Jessica probably has them too. If we ever meet I'm sure I'll notice -- I notice people's boobs -- but it's hard to imagine that actually knowing what she looks like would re-prioritize any of the dozens of reasons I'd like to meet her, or of the hundreds of things I'd like to hear her talk about, or the thousands of questions I'd want to ask.

If you haven't seen her blog check it out here.

(Note: "Boobs?" I hardly ever use the term but it seemed appropriate here. Anyone else have a problem with it or is it just me? Not exactly wrong so much as sort of limiting the scope -- sort of like calling hands "mitts." )

Update: Jessica's now offering a t-shirt via GoodStorm. 20% goes to Breast Cancer Action.

Update: Nutpicking alert: Note the strong support Jessica's getting from all over the feminist blogosphere. It's really, really critical to keep in mind that of the scores -- the hundreds! -- of feminist bloggers, radical, cultural, and otherwise, only one (and maybe one or two more) went all paleo about Jessica's appearance. Even though there's one real person at the heart of it it's looking more and more like a straw-feminist kerfuffle.

Even further update: Having finally read Alterhouse's post I get the very strong impression Alterhouse is simply unfamiliar with Jessica's blog and imagines it's one of those "gee I think 'girls gone wild' videos empower women' blogs." The bone of contention seems to be an ad in the sidebar featuring a young woman in a t-shirt with the perhaps-too-subtly-modified "mudflap babe" logo. If so then the confusion is particularly unfortunate. Alterhouse (who I'm not familiar with) takes one look at Jessica (who's last name I don't know) and a perhaps even briefer look at her site and decides she's a bimbo. Everyone else decides Alterhouse is a conservative harridan. (She seems instead to be a conservative feminist impatient with what she seems to perceive as unwavering liberal support for a someone she perceives to be charismatic sexual predator.)

So the charming and talented, but lately fairly quiet Bliatz had a wonderful administrative post the other day (yes, I said "wonderful administrative" and I might say it again.)

Link suggestions?

I've been pruning my link list a little, adding sites that I want to explore a bit more thoroughly. I've also removed a few links to sites that seem to have died out. (Please let me know if I shouldn't have).

...

Therefore, if you think there are links missing here (taking the subject mater of the blog into consideration), please let me know. I'm mostly interested in sites dealing with BDSM, and even more so if they include issues concerning the power exchanges integral to D/s.

However, feel free to suggest anything, and I'll check it out. No links guaranteed, though, as the link list is mainly for my own pleasure. You can promote your own site shamelessly if you want to, but be prepared for a bit of flaming from me if you do. I rarely miss a chance to be bitchy. Although I am, in fact, a very nice person. Occasionally.

[See the rest of her post, and some example comments here.

It's such a cool idea. Unlike Bliatz I keep a separate bookmark list on my browser and over time it falls out of sync with my blogroll and so sometimes sites go from cool, or at least interesting, to stalled, dark, hijacked, or commercial and I don't catch it for months.

Still, I've read and thought someone would be interested in every site I've blogrolled. I don't necessarily approve of the sites -- some are interesting because it's good to see other people's perspectives even if you don't agree with them yourself -- but I thought every one of them was worth a look.

If you're like me then after a while when you're visiting a familiar blog your eyes just skip over it rather than check to see if the author has added anyone new. And the cool thing is that her invitation created renewed interest in her blogroll. (That's how some of you recently found your way here.)

So like Bliatz I'd like to invite you to take a tour of my blogroll and let me know if anyone really strikes your fancy or, instead, if it seems like nobody's home. It'll help me out (lazy bum that I am), you might find someone who's words are just what you wanted to see, and it might also bring new eyes to a bunch of deserving bloggers old and new.

One thing: Don't feel like browsing them all? That's ok, there are a lot of them. Instead read all the people who's names begin with one letter of the alphabet -- maybe the first consonant or vowel in, um, your middle name, or your mother's maiden name, or some other random.

Note: If I can finally get the rest of family packed back off to school and caught up with my work (things are winding down after a very busy summer) I may take the alphabet test myself and write mini-reviews of the sites in my blogroll explaining why I picked them. No promises though. Remember, I'm trying to be lazy.

[Oh yeah, and check out Bliatz who in the past has written *very* compelling stuff about the trials, tribulations, not to mention the exhaltations of the d/s relationship she shares with her partner Kai. She said earlier this summer that she was winding down. But then again she just asked for fresh blogroll recommendations so who knows? --fl]

A link and a question:

First, about the link: One of the paradoxes of being a straight man who posts erotic photos is that I occasionally post pictures that include my cock without particularly caring to look at cocks myself. My loss, I guess, since quite a few of you seem to enjoy them. (By far the most frequently visited page is my Figleaf Photos page which shows a new pair of my photos every time you hit refresh. A lot of you evidently do so.)

Anyway, I was digging through my server longs and found that a fair number of people find my site through a blog called Flaccid Penis. Here's their tagline

This is a photo blog, for males and females who enjoy viewing the flaccid penis in all its glory. Please leave your comments for all to see. Make sure you look through the archive on the right, there is [sic] plenty of photos to enjoy

See quite a lot of photos of mostly but not entirely always flaccid penises here.

A couple of lexical quibbles. First of all, men's genitals are most often thought of in terms of penises (biological things you pee with and/or "inseminate" your partner with if you're trying to have children), phalluses (metaphysical things men use to dominate and oppress others with and a lot of academics write cranky treatises complaining about.) I prefer a third term, cocks, which deftly avoids the unpleasant p-words and identifies a sensual thing that's the only part evolved entirely as an organ for caressing one's partner. (If it's not being used for that purpose it's *not* a cock.)

The other quibble: I'm not entirely sure why people use the generic terms "male" and "female" to refer to our fellow men and women. As long as we're talking about human beings I strongly recommend using the latter. (It particularly aggravates me when the cases get mixed as in "men and females" or "women and males." It's like when right-wingers bend common English to call their opponents things like "members of the Democrat party" instead of, correctly, calling them Democrats.)

A third quibble, since I'm evidently in a quibbling mood, is that the models tend to be uniformly buff, tan, young, and larger than average.

But those are just quibbles. And quibbles aside I applaud the blogger's depiction of straight men as eye candy, and for the most part the men are presented as straight or neutral. (It's not that I object to photos of overtly gay men, or of models offered only as accessories to women in straight porn. It's just that there are plenty to too many of those already, whereas there really aren't a lot of representations of men presented for straight women.)

Another thing I think you might appreciate about the photos is that they show whole men instead of the more typical "gee I hope you think this is big one" cock-only shots common in amateur self-photography. (Very few of these photos seem to be self-photography. Another quibble you might not worry about at all.)

---

Second, some questions about my photos. Since the end of my extended folding laundry photo series I've pretty much stopped posting new images outside of the weekly Half-nekkid Thursday posts.

Have you even noticed that I stopped? Did you frequently click the "Continue reading..." links like the one below or did you tend to avoid them? Do you mind that I stopped? Are you happier that I stopped? Do you miss them and wish I would start again?

Just a quick note to let you know that Magdelena of Myths and Metawhores - Sexual Homeopathy has resurfaced with a new look and a new URL.

If you read her you'll want to adjust your bookmarks and RSS feeds, and if you've got her in your blogroll you'll want to update the link. If you don't read her you might want to check her out. If I start saying nice things about her work I'd have a hard time stopping. Instead I'll just point out she was the winner in this year's Best of Blogs sex-blog category.

Travel note: I'll be reading more between now and September 1 but posting less regularly since I'll be on my East Coast Adventure road trip visiting old haunts, visiting friends and family, and meeting fellow bloggers.

Vacations are pretty cool. One day you'd be dipping your toes in the blue Pacific Ocean not that far from Portland, Oregon... if the water wasn't quite so chilly that far north. Next day you'd be dipping your toes in the green Atlantic Ocean not that far from Portland, Maine... if the water wasn't quite so chilly this far north. This is how the children and grandchildren of Lake Woebegone vacation. :-)

And what would vacation be without a little light summer reading? Which brings us to...

This week's best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Leading the pack are top 3 posts voted by Sugasmer participants. Want in Sugasm #44? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

Top Voted Posts
Skinny Dipping (http://thehiddensides.blogspot.com)
Pretend Forest (http://xantasia.blogspot.com)
Why I’m Happy With “The Cleavage Situation” (http://lustylady.blogspot.com)

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Brian Griffin on Porn (http://sugarbank.com)

Random Selection
Self Love - Njoy (http://nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com)
More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

NSFW Pics
Astra Zero remixes nude photos (http://eroticandy.blogspot.com)
For the love of god, don’t see this movie… (http://www.internetisforporn.com)
Half-Nekkid and Loving Herself (http://www.TarasNaughtyShop.com)
Valerie Cortez (http://hotboxbabe.thumblogger.com)

BDSM and Fetish
The Honeymoon Part IV (http://redvelvetropeburn.com)
Hot Dog Anyone??? (http://www.caramelvixen.com)
Jack revisited (http://pick-up-pieces.blogspot.com)
More of the same later (http://dealing-with-domino.blogspot.com)
Small penis information lol! (http://www.spoiledebonyprincess.com)
Sometimes you just need a spanking (http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com)

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
A bit more on anonymity and outery while contemplating outlawery (http://www.realadultsex.com)
How To Get Great Phone Sex (http://radicalvixen.com)
My Pavlovian Pussy (http://www.taratainton.com)
Night with Vodka Tonic (http://ohsexuallife.blogspot.com)

Erotic Writing and Experiences
Breaking the ice, part 2 (http://junohenry.wordpress.com)
Coming down gently (http://joeheather.blogspot.com)
The dark basement of dirty secrets (http://ellabeecoquette.blogspot.com)
Five times in two days (http://justsexdrugsandrocknroll.blogspot.com)
The grind (http://xxgraciexx.blogspot.com)
Highway of Light (http://femmefataleteen.blogspot.com)
Kiss the Girl- One Last Call for Alcohol (http://texasspitfire.blogspot.com)
Me and Ebony on the Hood of a Car (throwing caution to the wind) (http://dirtydetails.blogspot.com)
Tales From Under The Desk, Part 4 (http://thebinside.blogspot.com)
Why Asian Women Really Get Me (http://virtual-sex-tourist.com)
The World Is Fuckable (http://totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
Yes, Please! (http://designingintimacy.blogspot.com)

Sex News and Sexy Reviews
Get virtual with Jenna (http://myhotbox.blogspot.com)
Neon Dildos and Vibrant Vibrators (http://sultry.naughtyblog.net)
“Put some lead in your pencil�? is not just an old cliche! (http://www.xratedtv.com)
Straight Porn Review: Two Dicks for Every Chick (http://blog.johnqafterhours.com)

Humor
Ever read your horoscope? (http://dirtyjokeblog.blogspot.com)
Letters on chest (http://hothardcock.blogspot.com)
Valerie Cortez licks her lips because the Sugasm is so sweet. Pic provided courtesy of Hot Box Babes.

The other day Chelsea Girl posted about an email conversation she'd had with someone -- a woman who's husband had chosen to flirt mildly online without disclosing his marital status. I thought it was a good post based mainly on the issues she raised but also in part based on the generally heartfelt but widely varied comments she received, pro and con.

Today she revisited the issue to address some of the more negative comments. In so doing she raises some pretty powerful questions.

There are a lot of aspects of the Bonnie Situation that I would like to address. I would like to address how quick our society is to damn the purported Other Woman and legitimize the pain of the Rightful One. I would like to address how much we like women to apologize, to take responsibility, even when what has gone wrong is not their fault, and how we feel angry at them when they won't. I would like to address how the term "over-educated skank" holds inherent in it a gendered double-standard of value of both education and sexual activity in women--too much of either in a chick is apparently bad, but the two together is rather worse.

In her introduction to the post CG says "One person just thought I was a "pre-menopausal over-educated skank," which, I suppose, isn't that far off the mark. Nor is it a bad thing, at least not in my book." I don't suppose I'd ever thought about it one way or the other (I'm not in the habit of calling people either overeducated or skanks) but upon freflection it I'd like to say, without the least intended irony, that it's not a bad thing in my book either.

I also wanted to recommend this post as a sweetly insightful testament to trust and faith in relationships.

I felt myself gear up for a glossy dramatic fight. I have, in my past, enjoyed a nice glossy operatic fight. I have liked it when the fat lady sang.

And looking at the pictures of other women's naughty bits splayed across page after page on my boyfriend's screen, I felt the orchestra tuning up. I felt myself strapping on the breastplate. I saw the blonde braids and my hand reaching for the spear. I felt my mouth opening.

But, surprisingly, what came out was not what I expected. I walked up to Donny and I told him simply, untheatrically what I had done. I made a full and complete confession that I had been snooping on his computer and that I had found these women's photos, a few emails, and some bits of erotica that one particularly lissome wench with a lot of free time and a bit of a foot fetish had sent to him. I told him that I was hurt and that I felt like I couldn't trust him. I told him, too, that I knew that he was mad at me from my rupturing his trust, and that I wanted to talk about it.

And we did.

Read her whole post here.

Some time last year, In my first-ever comment to Chelsea Girl, I said I thought she was a great sex blogger. Another commenter upbraided me saying that instead she blogged about life and life just happens to include sex. Posts like this -- about growth and trust, depth and faith, and the paradoxical strength and threadlike tenuousness of relationships -- demonstrate her defender's point.

Oh boy, Madam X of The Madame X Files has a wonderfully giddy, over-the-top erotic post about ice-cubes, air conditioning, nudity, and Magic Shell ice-cream sauce that's just worth checking out.

Slowly he'll bring the quickly melting cube to its final destination, my rapidly hardening nipple.
He will tease me until my nipple is tight and hard enough to cut glass and then grab his Magic Shell.
I wonder what the coating will feel like covering my nipple and slowly oozing down the side of my breast and how long it will take to harden to a candy shell?
Then, oh then the "unveiling"!
The first time I want him to try to lift the shell off in one solid piece.
I want to feel the release of suction and my nipple harden again when it is freed from its candy prison.
I am sure he will share that first piece of candy with me.
It will be the closest I ever get to licking my own nipple.
Here is where it gets cloudy.

If you don't follow this link to read the rest you must just enjoy missing out.

I have a very minor interest in body and body-part casting, and I've mentioned interest in licking different things off partner's bodies, so of course the subject matter appeals to me. There's also the way X meticulously covers details, like possible substitutes for the butterscotch flavor the manufacturer evidently no longer produces, and speculates step-by-step how the process might go that reveals the erotic inner nerd we too often suppress in ourselves. Plus the way she describes it is just obscenely hot. So! An unconventional, original hot, so-crazy-it-just-might-work mid-summer sex fantasy. An anodyne/antidote for August doldrums.

Hugo Schwyzer mentioned yesterday that he's been getting tons of Google hits from people looking for "Older men and younger women."

For some reason, there's been an absolute explosion since last Saturday in the number of hits to this blog looking for info on "older men and younger women." These remain my most popular posts ever by far -- I'm averaging 15-20 hits every hour of every day this week from sites like Google Australia and Yahoo in France, all eager to read more on this subject. I note that I now have the #1 and #2 ranked sites on Google USA for that search query! Searchers may not like what they find, but once again, here are my three posts on the topic:

Some reflections on older men, younger women and integrity

More on older men and younger women, a long response to "Kate"

One last post on older men, younger women: a reply to "Emily"

Any theories as to why this topic -- always a popular one -- has suddenly become even more popular with so many folks?

You can see the rest of Hugo's post here.

Whew! Now I feel I've done the responsible thing and cited Hugo's *even more* responsible post.

And *of course* I don't mention it repeatedly here in hopes of attracting hits from the same places he was getting them.

Ok! I had an ulterior motive.

Ok, ok! I mean I had another ulterior motive.

I'm actually sort of curious *who* they might be.

I don't think it's all mid-midlife crisis-sufferers seeking exploitably young women, though there might be some. I don't think it's all Anna Nichole Smith "gold-digger" wannabes seeking exploitably elderly men, though there might be some. I don't even think they're all from representatively conservative National Review columnist and NRO Corner blogger John Derbyshire seeking support for his thesis that in terms of desirability women are over the hill by age 15 (though not for lack of interest on his part.)

Those are all kind of stereotypical, pretty negative assumptions about relative age in relationships so I'll balance it by wondering instead if it has anything to do with role-playing fantasies, specifically age-play fantasies.

The cool thing about fantasies, of course, is they're just fantasies. And the cool thing about role-playing is they're playing out fantasies.

And the cool thing about age-play fantasies for me is I've finally got the kind of silvery-graying temples that would give me an air of stern dignity... were I able to stop goofing around long enough to pull it off. :-)

---

Anyway, if you've found your way here via Google, or if you've otherwise read this far because the subject interests you, I'd like to hear what you think. What do you consider to be older/younger instead of just "not the same age?" I know from private correspondence that at least a couple regular visitors are in decades-long marriages with older men and that others have had affairs or flings with men old enough to be their... well, I guess as a non-academician I'm comfortable saying "... to be their professors."

---

Update: Rae, a non-blogging commenter, says

I have always dated men much older than I am. For me, it's a matter of being able to relate to someone, and yes, Hugo is right about the measure of safety. But I've always been a settled kind of person, and I have never found a man my age I could be more than friends with. I have a bevy of male friends my age and a little younger, and I have always felt they were more like my brothers, somebody I could punch and tease and go bowling with, but not someone who I could love or marry or share a home with.

She raises a very Interesting point. The oldest children of my immediate group of peers are just approaching middle-school age and already we're hearing about the issue of girls physically maturing much sooner than boys their age and therefore the sense of alienation boys and girls of the same age have for each other at different points. Hmmm... At any rate, from my own teenage years I remember girls tended to be *much* more interested in older boys. I wonder if that establishes any kind of patterns for later on?

Anyway, I'm just saying that without absolving men who actively exploitat much younger women it's still the case that many younger women are just as attracted to older men.

I mentioned the other day that I haven't been feeling as expressively erotic as I might ordinarily like because I'm up to neck in a very demanding but very rewarding project at work (plus primary caregiving for two curious and energetic out-of-school children and an in-school partner, plus, plus, plus...) The wonderful thing about the web, though, is there's always someone else to take up the slack. Here are a bunch of them, via Sabrina and Sam at Sugasm.com. Thanks.

This week's best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Want in Sugasm #42? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the linklist within a week and you're all set.

Mr. Sugasm himself
73% of American's Hate Porn (http://sugarbank.com)

NSFW Pics (and a Podcast)
Amanda (http://hotboxbabe.thumblogger.com)
It’s Thursday! Happy HNT! (http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com)
Nora Marlo self portraits (http://eroticandy.blogspot.com)
Splish Splash (photos/podcast) (http://bedroomradio.blogspot.com)

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Does Size Matter? (http://sexeteria.blogspot.com)
Insatiable: How to Date a Nympho (http://sabrinainstockings.com)
Oh Kegels, How I Love Thee (http://blog.babeland.com)
On My Way to Sex Rehab (http://theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
Rockin’ -- Not Humpin’ -- In the Free World (http://cuntinglinguist.blogspot.com)
Straight, Male, Talking About My Sexuality (http://www.realadultsex.com)
Take Naked Pictures of Your Girlfriend (http://myhotbox.blogspot.com)
Thank God for Sex (http://totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
The thinky and the kinky: qualities of attraction (http://junohenry.wordpress.com)

Humor
Film Fridays 33 - Internet Dating (http://shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
The Top 30 Most Annoying Things About Porn (http://www.msnaughty.com/blog)
Why Don't I Ever See Porn Stars On the Golf Course? (http://sugarjoy.com)

Sex Work
Crossover Fetish Subs are Twice as Weak (http://www.ladyevilsdungeon.com/evil_domme)
Dumb Ass white boi! (http://www.spoiledebonyprincess.com/princess-blog  )
Smoking Fetish (http://radicalvixen.com/blog)
More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

Sex News and Sexy Reviews
August Contest - Story Time (http://sin.typepad.com/shauna_by_night)
Half-Nekkid and Loving Himself (http://www.TarasNaughtyShop.com)
Review: The Wolf Summers By ElSol (http://anawtymouz.blogspot.com)
Straight Porn Review: Briana Banks… a.k.a. Filthy Whore 3 (http://blog.johnqafterhours.com)

Erotic Writing and Experiences
8/1 by Rex: That Wonderful Ass (http://rexandroxy.blogspot.com)
Aerosmith (http://totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
Clothing Optional (http://tangysweet.blogspot.com)
The First 'Threesome' (http://lumpesse.com)
F♥ck Bunny (http://femmefataleteen.blogspot.com)
Last night (http://orgasmcurious.blogspot.com)
A Most Proper Text Message (http://damnjezebel.com/diary)
No Niceties (http://fourstate.blogspot.com)
Statuesque (http://www.asstr.org/~gentlebutfirm)
Through the Green Door (www.TaraTainton.com)
Voyeuristic Dream (http://dawnndirty.blogspot.com)
Yes. I Like Girls. (http://xantasia.blogspot.com)

BDSM and Fetish
The Honeymoon Part I (http://redvelvetropeburn.com)
Introducing people to rubber kink (http://www.dangerousfemme.com)
Open Panties (http://natalieslingerie.blogspot.com)
Pain Slut- A Fantasy (http://designingintimacy.blogspot.com)
Webcam Session with an Old Man (http://www.caramelvixen.com/vixen-blog)

Late Starter's blog has gone dark. He's been in communication with a number of people since, and he appears to have taken his blog down with personal but entirely sensible cause. I've never cared for Photoshopped erotic imagery but he did marvelous work. I really enjoyed his contributions as a blogger and I'll really miss him for that. I wish him the very best of luck.

Update: I corrected the link. Thanks, Amber.

At some point I'm going to need to write a post about Halley Suitt's How to become an alpha male lessons. (She's one of the women who spoke up at Susan Mernit's Gnomedex talk.) Anyway it's a cool series of essays on confident masculinity from her perspective begins lightly and then burrows deep.

For now though I'd like to point to Lesson #14: All about size

I guess there is a point to my rambling here. First, why are we flooded with so many naked pictures of women and find so little in the way of equally lovely pictures of male anatomy? And as for heterosexual male photos, yes, there are videos with rather explicit action shots, but simple beautiful still pictures of straight men -- prove me wrong, show me that gallery. Maybe this is the real dirty little secret of alpha malehood. For all the jockeying for position and mega-aggressive sports behavior, for all the competition at work for heirarchy and position, for all the competition to get the best looking babe and even after the many times men are accused of playing "my dick is bigger than your dick" -- is it the case that most men do not want to compare their actual dick to the next guy's dick and avoid it at all costs? What gives? Do straight men feel their penises are not ready for the light of day? Do they think they don't look good? Do they feel insecure that they don't look as good as the next guy?

...

Of course, my naive fantasy of the availablility of men's penises for viewing in the men's room ... turns out to be completely inaccurate and I've been well informed that taking a leak is all about NOT showing your stuff. Still, can I say, thanks to a few stone hard Greek statues and a few real flesh-and-blood men I've been lucky enough to KNOW well, the male member is a beautiful thing, flaccid or erect, it's time to give it the credit it deserves.

Read her entire essay -- which I'm mightily resisting quoting in full -- here.

Suitt wrote this early in April, 2003, before I discovered blogging and also before I started asking the same questions, and trying to answer them with photos of my own. I'm still not sure if there are many galleries like the ones she asked for more than three years ago now -- simple beautiful still pictures of straight men."

---

Doh! And here's her announcement of The Penis Blog Project that, I think, prompted her to write Lesson 14 this way.

Well, if you haven't seen the Penis Blog Project [the link now seems to be defunct --fl], you better go check it out. It went #1 on Blogdex, so someone sure is checking it out. It's about time we even up the score on the Net. That makes about 25 pictures of bare penises and 25 million pictures of bare girl bottoms, tops, fronts, backs, sides and insides. Thanks to Jonno for doing it and thanks to Niek for pointing it out.

Technology blogger Susan Mernit mentioned this morning that she'll be quoting from my Rays of sunshine, rays of warmth post about blog hackers and stalkers in a talk called Sex & Longing & Web 2.0 this afternoon at Gnomedex, a large technology conference, this afternoon.

She'll also be quoting or linking to a number of other sex bloggers

Quotes from personal bloggers related to my Gnomedex talk

Figleaf: "As you know, one of my on-going themes is that the average sex blogger doesn't do anything the average non-sex/non-blogger does except admit it. One of the huge benefits of sex blogging, especially anonymous sex blogging, is that we learn from each other that we're not the only ones."

Magadalena: "I have absolutely no idea how many sexual blogs there are or what percentage of the 40.1 million sites Technorati currently tracks dedicate themselves to sexual content, but I would think it's pretty high."

Bliatz: "I wish I had the courage to turn this blog into my main outlet. I wish I had the guts to just write everything here, expose the whole picture and expose it all to everybody. I wish I didn't feel I had to hide something as natural and straight-forward as my sexuality and all the thoughts and emotions connected to that."

Evil Minx, commenting on Anastasia's Sexualitie blog (which was hacked): "It's the loss of freedom that gets me also. The sheer uninhibited joy of being able to write as the person behind my eyes is what has kept me going over the last year. "

Some of the blogs, videobloggers, web sites and podcasters I may reference:

Real writers, cloaked identities
Unfurling My Sexuality --divorced and searching
Jefferson, One Life, Take Two --pervert and parent
Viviane--Viviane's Sex Carnival --bright and sexy
Freya-- Freya's House of Dreams --erotic wife
Always Aroused Girl- -erotic wife 2
Figleaf-- Real Adult Sex --wise guy
Rent Boy-- MonMouth --sex adventures
Bliatz --sex and identity
Girl with a one track mind--bright and searching
Erotica Lee 1--Memoir of a prostituted child, now adult
Coming Out at 48 --long married, coming into new life

Open for viewing(and making money from it...)
Violet Blue-- tiny nibbles
Adacia Ray-- Waking Vixen
Susie Bright-- Susie Bright's Journal
Bridgett Harrison -Ropelover Journal

Podcasters:
Polyamory Weekly; Notes
Violet Blue-Open Source Sex

Outed/Hacked & related (examples)
Magdalena-Delta of Venus
Mamalicious

Brand new blog, with issues
In My DNA

See Susan's post here.

While it's flattering anytime someone quotes you, I *really* appreciate that she's bringing public attention to some of the issues around anonymity and privacy in the online world. As we learned last January, a lot of anonymous bloggers go dark because someone contacts them, threatens to out them, or just plain threatens them.

It's still happening, of course. The anonymous blogger, and extremely popular, Armando from the political blog DailyKos had to withdraw when he was outed by a gang of conservative journalists, and dozens of smaller bloggers of all stripes (including, of course, sex bloggers) wind up going dark because someone creepy starts drawing conclusions.

I'll have more to say once I hear her talk (Either in person if I can get in to the sold-out event or if I can catch a live feed of it online) but while I don't think she'll be talking much about security *directly* this is a good opportunity for me to bring up the main point of my Sunshine post: being outed as a blogger is almost always embarrassing, to say the least, but stalking, threatening, or blackmailing a blogger is almost always a criminal offense.

More later.

Here's an update from Lena about the defacement of her site.

I've embraced the classic English response to a crisis and have made tea.
I'm feeling calmer, and hell, even philosophical. This being the Solstice, I'm choosing to rekindle faith with pagan truth.

Someone destroyed my site yet my sacred space is inviolable. As some of you will know, in ancient China, when a house caught fire and blazed, it was considered auspicious to let it burn for a time. This was believed to purge the home. Across all cultures, fire is seen as a catalyst for change and an agent of transmutation.

In my recent 100 things, I said 'fire captivates me' and so it does. As do the mythologies associated with this purifying force, which view fire as a transformational power. The most exquisite mythology is that of the phoenix which not only regenerated when wounded, but also rose anew from the ashes.

To those who destroyed the old site, I say fuck you; have the carcass seasoned with my contempt.

To my dear friends and gentle readers, you have my assurance that I will be back. I'll create a new home, and each of you will be so welcome there.
Between then and now, you can still reach this wandering metawhore by mail:
magdelena@hush.com so please stay in touch for I am invisible but not silent.

My love to you all.

I figure I'll keep her link in my blogroll anyway.

From my "Folding Laundry" photoset on Flickr.

When you grow wear of the unremitting (and unrenumerated) tasks of everyday life it's important to take regular breaks and give yourself a little personal time. According to Flylady, not a sex blogger at all (at all!) but an indispensable authority on domestic sanity, taking regular breaks is crucial.

Take Regular Breaks!

I want you to stop for a few minutes every hour and take a break. During this break, spend 15 minutes sharpening your axe. LOL!

...

#4: Spend this 15 minutes calming yourself. Breathing deep and slowly thinking about the next hour and what you can get done.

...

Now set a timer for 15 minutes and take a break.

Read the whole take-a-break list here.

This week's best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. If you'd like to be part of Sugasm #37 submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

Announcements

Get Asia Argento’s Panties (sugarbank.com)
For The Girls Launches Erotic Fiction Competition (msnaughty.com)
Win the Cheese (nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com)
Black Ball 14 giugno 2006 (deboratravslave.erosblog.it)

Erotic Writing and Experiences

Time of the Month (edinerotica.blogspot.com)
To Caitlin’s Tits, and Well Beyond (totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
A Fantasy Story, by Me (dontwakethekids.blogspot.com)
Thigh Highs, No Panties and Red Wine (wetbeyondbelief.blogspot.com)
Look Through Any Window - Part Five (theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
I Want… (easilyaroused.co.uk)
The Best Sex I Ever Had (dawnndirty.blogspot.com)
Fiction: Compromise (erotiterrorist.blogspot.com)
Temptation (pleasinglydebauched.blogspot.com)
Nightdreaming (gentlygently.blogspot.com)
Coming Upside Down (alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
Waking Sleeping Beauty (aliferestarted.blogspot.com)
Naughty Night with Stiletto Girl and K (darkside-journey.blogspot.com)
Assignation (talktovanessa.com)
Watch Him (by Super Secret Guest Author) (domequeen.blogspot.com)
Last Night’s Fun (seanandmel.blogspot.com)

Bubbly in a New Vessel (teasingtaunting.blogspot.com)

NSFW Pics

G’Day Mate check out the I Shot Myself Video (eroticandy.blogspot.com)
Earth Goddess HNT (spiritsex.blogspot.com)
Carli Banks in a Bikini (babelog.sestaluna.com)
The Return of Cumisha Jones (ethnorotica.com)
HNT #2 (avahsascent.blogspot.com)
Shaving and Silliness - Video Blog Entry (seska4lovers.com)
Eve Lawrence (internetisforporn.com)
Corinna of FEMJOY - 3 Galleries (sensualarousalblog.com)
Nadia on Abby Winters (iloveabbywinters.com)
Teen Lesbians Bathe on Sapphic Erotica (simply-sapphicerotica.com)

Thoughts on Sex

Sex is a Figment of My Imagination (anawtymouz.blogspot.com)
Rainbow Pride (shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
The Word of the Day is “Glissade” (realadultsex.com)
Quotes - Bad Girls (seskuality.com)
Meat and Veg (gentlebutfirm.blogspot.com)
Wrong Place, Wrong Time (wanklog.blogspot.com)
Prostitutes and Porn Stars (hotcouple.co.uk)
Taking a Moment for Masturbation (taratainton.com)
How Women Masturbate (onaniajournal.blogspot.com)
Why Do We Go Back To The Women We Know Are _______? (vagueboy.com)

Sex Work

Warning: Not for the Squeamish… My Worst Sex Worker Moment to Date (lipstickexplosion.com)
Fine Dining (radicalvixen.com)
Making of “Lessons in Latin” (adelehaze.com)
Phone Sex and Small Talk (lustinghearts.com/phonesexblog)
Stocking Fetish Phone Sex (sabrinainstockings.com)

Sex Advice and Sexy Reviews

How to Throw a Killer Bachelor Party (4thegirlnextdoor.blogspot.com)
Art of Fingering (creamonpants.com)
Natural Contours - Liberte (sin.typepad.com/shauna_by_night)

BDSM and Fetish

Whip Me, Beat Me, Slap Me â€" Just Don’t Judge Me (cuntinglinguist.blogspot.com)
Anticipation (The Denouemet) (redvelvetropeburn.blogspot.com)
Silent Night (masterenigma.blogspot.com)
I’m a Horny Little Slut (everythingoze.blogspot.com)
Cucumber Fucker (spoiledebonyprincess.com)
New Anklets (photos) (silvercatspanties.blogspot.com)
In His Arms (thenewden.blogspot.com)
Foot Fetish Boyz (caramelvixen.com/sticky_blog)
Mistress Xena in Purple Boots (Video) (thebootcam.com)
Gaining Trust Through a BDSM Blog or BDSM Journal (alternativealbany.com/bdsm)
Lost in the Moment (jetshanger.blogspot.com)
Marxist Spanking (spankingwriters.com)

This week’s best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them, organized as always by the lovely Sabrina and doughty Sam at Sugasm.com. Want in the next one? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

Audio
Audioblog Posts 1 and 2 (alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
First Ever Audio Post (secretsofadirtygirl.blogspot.com)

Funny / Sex News
Alas Poor Yorick, I Blew Him Well (tgp.com)
The Hooters Conspiracy (ethnorotica.com)
League of Super Friends with Benefits (shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
My Most Embarrassing Sex Moment (radicalvixen.com)

Thoughts on Sex, Sexy Reviews, Sex Advice
5 Senses (gentlygently.blogspot.com)
Anonymity (gentlebutfirm.blogspot.com)
Cultural Differences (sugarbank.com)
Masturbation and Ejaculatory Inevitability (onaniajournal.blogspot.com)
More Pixilated Nudity (4thegirlnextdoor.blogspot.com)
Natural Contours - Ultime (sin.typepad.com/shauna_by_night)
Sex Tip - From a Men’s Magazine (seskuality.com)
Sexual Balance (eroticvision.blogspot.com)
You Asked: What Do I Consider Cheating? (cuntinglinguist.blogspot.com)

BDSM and Fetish
Bondage Fantasies (darkside-journey.blogspot.com)
Contemplation of the Lower Navel (sabrinainstockings.com)
DVD: “And For You I Will Come As Well�? (Lupus Pictures) (adelehaze.com)
Sexual Healing (aliferestarted.blogspot.com)

Erotic Writing
Climax (erotiterrorist.blogspot.com)
The Dirty Couple in Florida (or what we did on our Spring Break) Part 2 (drtycplinva.blogspot.com)
Fun with the Kama Sutra (thetastetester.com)
Morning Licks (vivianandjack.blogspot.com)
Of Blindfolds and Bedmates (easilyaroused.co.uk)
People Watching (seanandmel.blogspot.com)
Public Masturbation (wanklog.blogspot.com)
Questions About Etiquette (realadultsex.com)
Sweet Slut (can also go in BDSM) (nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com)
Wine and a Wandering Mind (the-sensuous-libertine.blogspot.com)

NSFW Pics / Photos
Alicia Witt Revisited (pornhater.com)
Double HNT (spiritsex.blogspot.com)
Four Galleries of Liza from Galitsin News (sensualarousalblog.com)
Happy Half-Nekkid Thursday! (stilettodiaries.blogspot.com)
Kyla Cole 3 (babelog.sestaluna.com)
Miranda and Steph make love shot by Abby Winters (iloveabbywinters.com)
Naughty Office (internetisforporn.com)
Original Upskirt Photos Just Released (put under news/announcements?) (taratainton.com)
Paulina and Zafrina on Sapphic Erotica (simply-sapphicerotica.com)
Threesome Pic (seska4lovers.com)
Xanthia Nude (eroticandy.blogspot.com)

The best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Categories shift around and change between editions depending on what people send in, and *you* can get in on the next one by visiting Sugasm.com and completing the form.

Erotic Writing

Back to the Beach (luvsicpup.blogspot.com)
Bliss (sexblogthis.blogspot.com)
Closings and Openings (sadiedark69.blogspot.com)
The Delight Of Sexual Tension (thetastetester.com)
The Driver (pleasinglydebauched.blogspot.com)
First Time - Steaming the Windows in the Backseat of a Car (thestoryofrose.blogspot.com)
Five Minutes (barbiebaby09.livejournal.com)
How Would It Be? (easilyaroused.co.uk)
Illicit Liason (gentlygently.blogspot.com)
Low-Carb Foreplay (realadultsex.com)
masculine/Feminine (damnjezebel.com)
Stairs (alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
Tara’s Private Diary: Sucking Him Dry (taratainton.com)
Taxi Cab Confessions (bikersballsandteacherstits.blogspot.com)

Thoughts on Sex: Sex Advice, Sex Commentary, Sex News, Interviews, Sexual Politics

Burning Rubber Interview (sin.typepad.com/shauna_by_night)
Cat-Girls and the Sexuality of Cats (shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
The Future’s So AdBrite, I Gotta Get Paid (sugarbank.com)
Hand-Jobs: Things You Need To Know, Part One (cuntinglinguist.blogspot.com)
High-Frequency Masturbation (onaniajournal.blogspot.com)
Maenads’ Mantra (sexeteria.blogspot.com)

BDSM and Fetish

All Tied Up (theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
C is for Cookie (redvelvetropeburn.blogspot.com)
Dire Caning Technique (adelehaze.com)
Identity Crisis for a slave (masterenigma.blogspot.com)
Tease and Denial with pastorpaul (goddessjaguar.com)

NSFW Pics

Allie Sin, Naughty Nati Dichotomy Exposed. Plus nekkid pics. (internetisforporn.com)
Crystal Klein (pspporn.com)
Cute Spring Babe Cody Milo in Full Bloom (thesexblog.com)
Exclusive - Justine Joli, Ball (tgp.com)
Front Seat Sexy (eroticandy.blogspot.com)
Hair Goof (seska4lovers.com)
Marathon Progressive House Party… revisited in pictoral (danni654.blogspot.com)
A Saucer of Cream Please (shaysotherspot.blogspot.com)

Experiences (and a Funny)

Cock & Dumplings (nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com)
Dick’s Sauce (janeluvsdick.com)
My first wank (wanklog.blogspot.com)
Sean luvs goths: Part 2 (seanandmel.blogspot.com)

Cool. So I ran across another participant-selected blog last week, BlogStormz, hosted by longtime blogger ArtfulDodger. It's a bit more limited than some of the better-established indexes but I appreciate its focus on sexbloggers.

I knew when I started this that it would take weeks to get it going, set-up and propagated around. The response so far has been incredible, so thank you to ALL our participants in this grand experiment.

The Howling, almost
Yes
The X Poems - Girl action
A Fantasy Of Boobs
Half-Nekkid for kj
Thong wrong wrong wrong wrong
Cat Girls and Sexuality
Diconnected organs
At Kafeneion - Adult Version
bliss
pinch
masculine/Feminine
Reclaiming my love
Assignment for Ginger Man
Voluptuous Reading
Post Coital Honesty
Kill or Cure?.
Secret Reads: Into the light
Voracious Kitty
My Cockwhore at work
Our first trip to Trapeze
What do I expect from a lover?.
Sin Girl Interview.
FLESH

You can see the whole blog here.

I'm not sure I'll post the whole thing here every week, but I'll be submitting entries. Variety is the spice of life.

A while back I tipped my hat to asexual people who might be thought of as having no orientation at all, and yesterday I made a passing reference to the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network. Which gives me a chance to resurrect a post I evidently forgot to publish late last year.

Anway, along those lines back in December Amanda Marcotte of the generally non-sex blog Pandagon wrote a cool pean to tolerance in the Sex-positive philosophy and a sharp poke at people who advocate abstinence as the only legitimate form of sexuality.

Sex positivity respects diversity. Thinking and writing about sex positivity has really made me learn to come around to appreciating what a gift diversity is. Not just in sexual preference, either. I've talked to people who have all sorts of tastes, beliefs, drives, experiences, and it's helped me really become a lot more giving and understanding, strangely enough. I've been fortunate enough to have S&M aficianados help me clarify my thinking on the concept of "consent", had people who don't fit neatly into specific gender categories teach me a lot about how we define the concept of gender, had people who are normally deemed "promiscious" by society at large teach me the importance of self-respect. I suppose I could have learned some of this stuff elsewhere, but I didn't. Sex positivity gave me that.

Sex positivity has helped me unwind mountains of patriarchal bullshit where my body is defined as belonging to others, be they family, the law, a husband, whatever. I'm not all the way there, but I've got my foot in the door and without the basic right to claim my body for my own ends instead of view it as some sort of object to "give" to a husband in exchange for social status and/or material wealth, I don't quite know where I'd be as a feminist.

But as a nerdy sort, what I really love about sex positivity is that it's knowledge and truth based, that it's a social movement that basically compels you to think, especially if you're approaching it from an explicitly feminist point of view. A lot of sex positive writers get into nuts and bolts stuff, but of course, what you might call "lab work" is important, too. (And fun.) There is a misconception that sex positivity is about selling sexual freedom as a sort of cure-all for unhappiness, but I never got that impression. I think that's just bad P.R. It's more about accepting that life is going to knock you around a little, but vowing to make the most out of it anyway, and going out there and living it as best you can.

Read her whole post here.

She contrasts this with the my-way-or-the-highway approach taken by those who seek to impose an abstinence-only orientation on everybody else. Ironically, those who would impose an intolerantly one-size-fits-all abstinence-only asexuality on others are often surprisingly -- even revoltingly -- unorthodox in their own non-asexuality.

[Note: The entry at Pandagon has gone missing. For the moment, anyway, you can find a mirrored copy here (scroll down to "Abstinence is Immoral"). --fl]

Over the course of this blog you've probably heard me say over and over that the difference between genders is overrated, that we have far more in common than our stereotypes about ourselves lead us to believe.

Not everyone shares this view. Twisty Faster of I blame the patriarchy starts out with a good defense of asexuality -- a sexual orientation I believe is absolutely legitimate and ought to be more widely recognized and accepted [See, for instance, Asexual Visibility & Education Network --fl] -- and then goes a bit farther than I'd be comfortable going...

Sex as the ultimate human raison d’être is, in fact, a cornerstone of the male supremacist agenda. After all, men seem to be the only ones afflicted with this overarching need to copulate. That’s because, as every girl who has ever met a teenage boy knows, they get sick and die if they can’t fuck! You know! Blueballs! They die from blueballs, a condition in which the boy ungratified suffers piteously disfiguring boils, brain lesions, spina bifida, blindness, and psychosis before his miserable, frustrated life is extinguished by the spontaneous combustion of his grossly elevated testosterone.

But no woman needs sex. She may like it, and because of that she may want it from time to time, but if there were no patriarchy--by which I mean, if she were not a member of the sex class--her submission to ritual domination would remain, like the whipped cream on a mocha frappuccino at Starbucks, entirely optional. But there is patriarchy, and she is a member of the sex class, and as such, expression of her sexuality is permitted only in terms of male prurience. It is her sacred duty to prevent blueballs, and what’s more she’d better like it, or she’s a frigid crazy bitch lesbian who seems to think she’s above a good ass-whuppin.

Read her whole post here.

This is an area where I feel comfortable speaking only for myself. While I very, very much enjoy heterosexual sex I have yet to die for lack of it. Of course she didn't mean die *dead* but even then I tend to resent the implication more than I tend to resemble it. If you further factor in the unhelpful stereotype of men equating sex with an affirmation of romantic affection rather than a rewarding act in its own right, the desires men express seem as much poignant as misplaced.

It may also be possible that Twisty is engaging in unconscious age bias. What may be more true about very young men and women may be less true about middle-aged ones. Still, she's an interesting writer and passionate writer who reaches beyond standard GLBTH(etero) orientations and so she gets a spot in my blogroll.

Update: See also Twisty's very important post about "gray area" sites that post disturbingly salacious but evidently legal photos of children. I feel very strongly about this issue (see also here, here, and here.) In a nutshell I feel, passionately, that sexual attention placed by adults on those who are not yet adults greatly increases the risk that those children will grow up to have dysfunctional adult sex lives. Consequently sites such as the ones Twisty points to, with photos like the ones she's chosen to post, really, really ought to be, um, discouraged. Anyway, one more reason why Twisty's in my blogroll.

The best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Categories shift around and change between editions depending on what you send me, and you can get in on the next one by using this form.

Thoughts on Sex: Sex Commentary, Sex Advice, Blogging

All About Oral: Odor, Etiquette, and Why Some Women Don’t Want It (cuntinglinguist.blogspot.com)
Anatomy Lessons Part 2 (swelteringcelt.com)
And it Burns, Burns, Burns… (sexeteria.blogspot.com)
Classic S Spot - More on Masturbation (shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
Damn Leeches! (anawtymouz.blogspot.com)
His Addiction (onaniajournal.blogspot.com)
Love Conquers Some But Not All (realadultsex.com)
Pussy on the Loose (taratainton.com)

Funny / Sex News / Grab Bag

10 Lies Pornographers Tell (sugarbank.com)
Angelina Puts Collagen Rumors to Bed (tgp.com)
I Bet You Didn’t Know the Ancient Greeks Had Strap-ons… (tirepaddle.com)
Last Night Dick Slipped… (janeluvsdick.com)
Sex in the News - Celebrity Sex Tales (seskuality.com)
Shit Week (nakedloftparty.com)

Reviews and Interviews

Interview with Sophia (chillivanilla.com/blg/)
Sugarjoy Review: Xervious Anime Labs (sugarjoy.com)

BDSM and Fetish

Always Ready… (seanandmel.blogspot.com)
Bath Time (ropegirl.blogspot.com)
Daddy’s Little Girl (redvelvetropeburn.blogspot.com)
Edging (sheenv.blogspot.com)

NSFW Pics

Ariel X Again and Again… (eroticandy.blogspot.com)
Christine Young Review (internetisforporn.com)
Free Pics (seska4lovers.com)
Maddi and Rene on Sapphic Erotica (simply-sapphicerotica.com)
Mim shot by Penelope for Abby Winters (iloveabbywinters.com)
Mirrors (pspporn.com)
Misato by Yousoudo for Met-Art (sensualarousalblog.com)
Naughty, Nasty HNT! (sexblogthis.blogspot.com)
Sunshine (lumpesse.com)

Erotica/Erotic Experiences

Between the Biker & the Wall (bikersballsandteacherstits.blogspot.com)
Cock Tease (sexyukgirl.blogspot.com)
First Meeting (secretsofadirtygirl.blogspot.com)
Hard Fucking (everythingoze.blogspot.com)
I Saw. I Came. I was Conquered. (theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
Last Night (whatsexmaycome.blogspot.com)
Magically Delicious (fourstate.blogspot.com)
Masturbating in the Car (alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
Masturbation and Memories (philosophyofbeing.blogspot.com)
Please, I Would Love A Kiss (suburbansexpot.blogs.com)
Secret Reads: The Roommate (secretbrain.blogspot.com)
Shhh… Do You Hear That? (v-boat.blogspot.com)
Snatched Moments (gentlygently.blogspot.com)
Sunday Sweetness (antisojo.livejournal.com)
When He Watches (tangysweet.blogspot.com)

Experiences

From Fantasy to Reality (emergingontheotherside.blogspot.com)
Kicking Myself In The Ass (stilettodiaries.blogspot.com)
Life with an Easy Girlfriend (hotcouple.co.uk)

Sex Work

Packing for a Spanking Shoot (adelehaze.com)
Wearing Your Inner Vixen (tinastrangeworld.blogspot.com)

Announcements and Sex Politics

Britney Spears Pro-Life Statue (spiritsex.blogspot.com)
Jorge Rivas (sugarpit.com)
New Book Review (cakenyc.com)

The best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Categories shift around and change between editions depending on what you send Sabrina and Sam at Sugasm.com.

Thoughts on Sex: Sex Commentary, Sex Advice, Blogging

All About Oral: Odor, Etiquette, and Why Some Women Don’t Want It (cuntinglinguist.blogspot.com)
Anatomy Lessons Part 2 (swelteringcelt.com)
And it Burns, Burns, Burns… (sexeteria.blogspot.com)
Classic S Spot - More on Masturbation (shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
Damn Leeches! (anawtymouz.blogspot.com)
His Addiction (onaniajournal.blogspot.com)
Love Conquers Some But Not All (realadultsex.com)
Pussy on the Loose (taratainton.com)

Funny / Sex News / Grab Bag

10 Lies Pornographers Tell (sugarbank.com)
Angelina Puts Collagen Rumors to Bed (tgp.com)
I Bet You Didn’t Know the Ancient Greeks Had Strap-ons… (tirepaddle.com)
Last Night Dick Slipped… (janeluvsdick.com)
Sex in the News - Celebrity Sex Tales (seskuality.com)
Shit Week (nakedloftparty.com)

Reviews and Interviews

Interview with Sophia (chillivanilla.com/blg/)
Sugarjoy Review: Xervious Anime Labs (sugarjoy.com)

BDSM and Fetish

Always Ready… (seanandmel.blogspot.com)
Bath Time (ropegirl.blogspot.com)
Daddy’s Little Girl (redvelvetropeburn.blogspot.com)
Edging (sheenv.blogspot.com)

NSFW Pics

Ariel X Again and Again… (eroticandy.blogspot.com)
Christine Young Review (internetisforporn.com)
Free Pics (seska4lovers.com)
Maddi and Rene on Sapphic Erotica (simply-sapphicerotica.com)
Mim shot by Penelope for Abby Winters (iloveabbywinters.com)
Mirrors (pspporn.com)
Misato by Yousoudo for Met-Art (sensualarousalblog.com)
Naughty, Nasty HNT! (sexblogthis.blogspot.com)
Sunshine (lumpesse.com)

Erotica/Erotic Experiences

Between the Biker & the Wall (bikersballsandteacherstits.blogspot.com)
Cock Tease (sexyukgirl.blogspot.com)
First Meeting (secretsofadirtygirl.blogspot.com)
Hard Fucking (everythingoze.blogspot.com)
I Saw. I Came. I was Conquered. (theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
Last Night (whatsexmaycome.blogspot.com)
Magically Delicious (fourstate.blogspot.com)
Masturbating in the Car (alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
Masturbation and Memories (philosophyofbeing.blogspot.com)
Please, I Would Love A Kiss (suburbansexpot.blogs.com)
Secret Reads: The Roommate (secretbrain.blogspot.com)
Shhh… Do You Hear That? (v-boat.blogspot.com)
Snatched Moments (gentlygently.blogspot.com)
Sunday Sweetness (antisojo.livejournal.com)
When He Watches (tangysweet.blogspot.com)

Experiences

From Fantasy to Reality (emergingontheotherside.blogspot.com)
Kicking Myself In The Ass (stilettodiaries.blogspot.com)
Life with an Easy Girlfriend (hotcouple.co.uk)

Sex Work

Packing for a Spanking Shoot (adelehaze.com)
Wearing Your Inner Vixen (tinastrangeworld.blogspot.com)

Announcements and Sex Politics

Britney Spears Pro-Life Statue (spiritsex.blogspot.com)
Jorge Rivas (sugarpit.com)
New Book Review (cakenyc.com)

You never know where you'll get inspiration for your next post. Agree, disagree, or drool with delight, there's something here for everyone.

The best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Posts are cut at F within each category, categories shift around and change between editions depending on what you send me, and you can get in on the next one by using this form.

Sugasm is organized and edited by Sabrina and Sam at Sugasm.com.

BDSM/Fetish
HNT #4 - Assume the Position (avaadora.blogspot.com)
I Don’t Mind it Rough (tangysweet.blogspot.com)
Kneeling (alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
Making Love in the Rain Revisited (redvelvetropeburn.blogspot.com)
Monde Imaginaire (theninthwave.typepad.com)
The Notorious Bettie Page (sugarbank.com)
Sadist Taking What is His (theheronclan.blogspot.com)
Spanking Site Review: Bars and Stripes (adelehaze.com)
Thigh High Boots (video) (thebootcam.com)
Training and Surrender (aliferestarted.blogspot.com)
Choices - Part Five (masterenigma.blogspot.com)
D/s Correspondence (barbiebaby09.livejournal.com)

Erotica/Erotic Experiences
In Three Minds (orpheusmind.blogspot.com)
My Ultimate Fantasy (gentlygently.blogspot.com)
The Slow Fuck (secretsofadirtygirl.blogspot.com)
Teen Lesbians Brittney and Avril on Sapphic Erotica (simply-sapphicerotica.com)
The Vixxen Chronicles - Walking Funny, Pt. 3 (unfetteredcravings.blogspot.com)
Welcome To My Fantasy (herknees.org)
Coach T… Ch. 5 (whatsexmaycome.blogspot.com)
Dear Pussy (secretbrain.blogspot.com) I am now a sex worker (lumpesse.com)
Half-Nekkid: Topless and Thinking (sabrinainstockings.com)
Mothers and Prostitutes Don’t Mix (taratainton.com)