Mr. Emphatically Not Gay

 Posted by on September 17, 2010
Sep 172010
 

by Amethyst Wonder

Unlike last month’s article, this is not about a guy I met online. This is about four guys I met online. I’m lumping them all together because they shared the same annoying trait.

Each of these episodes begins the same; they seem like a good fit for something I’m looking for (usually ongoing casual sex). Each of these episodes ends the same; they make some declaration about not being into “any of that gay shit,” which they then define as something ridiculous like having sex while there is another male alive somewhere on the planet.

Episode 1: There are some guys who can’t stop talking about their desire to be pegged. And then there are guys who can’t even bear the thought of someone playing with their asses. After a promising online chat, I met a potential sexual partner in person. Other than his seeming a bit conventional, he met every requirement I have for sexual partners until…

He leaned in close and asked if I was into anal. Before I could answer, he went on to tell me how much he loved it and how it was his “thing.” I finally got to tell him that I did enjoy anal play, and then I asked him if he liked giving, receiving, or both. Take a moment to glance back up at the title of this article, and you’ll probably get an idea of his answer.

He shoved himself back from the table, declaring, “I don’t do that gay shit! I’m a man. I’m a MAN! That’s gay shit, taking it up the ass. I’m a man. I thought you was a woman! I thought you was looking for a MAN!”

So now, not only would pegging make him not a man, it would make me not a woman. Great. So glad we cleared that up. Mutually agreed, definitive end of date.

Episode 2: I met another potential partner early last year, shortly after Dark Odyssey Winter Fire 2009. As is common after these events, I was a little floaty, and my date was curious. I shared tales of my own experiences as well as things I witnessed. I paused when my date’s brow furrowed in confusion. I asked him what was wrong.

In explaining the phenomenon that is Sex-O-Rama, I had just told him of a very hot (hetero) couple having sex in the corner of the room while lots of other people watched – some just watching, some masturbating, some having sex of their own. But my date was suddenly disturbed by one specific detail of this story: there was a guy having sex while other guys were watching and getting off. Never mind that the guy was having sex with a girl. The fact that he could have sex with other penises, let alone other erect penises, exposed made him a little bit gay.

Now, to be (more than) fair, when asked if the guy in question was into guys, I answered that I honestly had no idea and that it was possible. I was somewhat willing to take this as a teaching moment. But the kicker was that the fact that my date had up to this point been aroused by this story made him uncomfortable because it might imply that he was gay. No, really. He said that.

“I just don’t want you to think I’m gay or anything like that because I was into the story. I mean, if I’d realized the guy was gay I wouldn’t have been into it.”

OK, thanks for playing. Date unilaterally ended.

Episodes 3 & 4: This episode involves two guys. I start chatting with a guy who is saying all the right things. Then he mentions he has a buddy, and they’ve always wanted to share a girl. I’m (theoretically) game, so we start talking logistics. Suddenly, with absolutely no prompting on my part, one of them says, “And you know we’re both straight, right? So no gay shit like double-penetration.”

I explain to them that unless the meaning of double-penetration has changed to mean your buddy penetrates you while you penetrate me, I fail to see how double-penetration constitutes “gay shit.”

“We can’t have sex with you at the same time. That would be like having sex with each other.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You both have your dick in a girl, but that’s gay?”
“Yeah, I mean, that’s just like having sex with another guy. I can’t have sex with another guy.”

Ok, thanks. Bye now. The date ends before it begins.

The Moral of the Story: Hey, my friends are all over the gender and sexual orientation spectrum. I like straight guys just fine. But if you are so scared of being in the same area code as gay that you shun perfectly heterosexual activities, there’s something else going on.

There are so many things to take away from this that I’ll probably miss a few.

A good friend pointed out, there’s something really wrong with the fact that Guy #1 finds receiving anal sex beneath him as a man, but he loves to do it to women. It’s like he’s saying that women are only holes or receptacles for sex, not full participants.

I have to wonder if Guy #’2’s homophobia is really just covering up some serious insecurity. If there are no other guys in the room, then there’s no one to compare him to. But he can hide his insecurity be deeming the whole situation “kinda gay.”

Also, Guy #2 was more concerned that I might think he was gay than anything else. It occurs to me that knowing whether or not you’re gay (or whatever you are) should trump someone else’s perception of you – true or false. But then, that’s why I’m fascinated by labels.

I think the common theme here is that these guys feel that their sexuality is being challenged. They lack either the confidence or the comfort in their own sexuality to not worry about how (let alone, whether) an activity, another person’s presence, or someone else’s perception might affect their orientation. As my same brilliant friend summarized, “Confidence in your sexuality is largely independent of being able to cleanly define your sexuality.”

But at the end of the day, the most important point is so obvious, I hope, that I completely forgot to include it during my earlier drafts. Before we even get to ridiculous ideas about what makes a person gay, or whether your sexual identity can be defined by an activity, these guys are working from the fundamental assumption that there’s something wrong, or at least inferior, with being gay. And if you believe that, your view of the world and mine just aren’t going to line up. You’re claiming superiority over a group of people based on things you seem to have absolutely no idea about. Date over, because you probably aren’t going to be any happier with me than I am with you.

‘Polishing up’ service skills

 Posted by on September 15, 2010
Sep 152010
 

Dear Sarah,

I’m a service submissive that is currently looking for a Dominant, and in the meantime I’d like to improve my skills. Do you have any recommendations for ‘polishing’ up my service skills?

Dear reader,

May I suggest a supply of good quality jewelers polishing rouge and a soft cloth? Seriously, though, looking for ways that one can more fully serve our potential dominants can offer some useful ways to spend our time between relationships that produce personal growth (thereby increasing our potential value to partners), rather than bemoaning our current non-attached state or the lack of quality dominants on the market. Let’s pretend that you get to attend a very special college just for submissives that wish to learn new skills…we’ll call it SubSkool ™.

Before we go to school, we need to figure out what it is, exactly, that we want to learn. Have you worked on making yourself a checklist of the skills that you have, as well as the skills that you’d like to work towards gaining? I often suggest that submissives, slaves, and service oriented bottoms spend some time thinking about what kinds of service that they would like to offer, and then use that list to develop a checklist of skills that they wish to gain or improve. I often group the ways that service can be offered as follows:

By starting with these broad groupings, you can brainstorm a huge number of skills that you may wish to offer…and as with all other brainstorming projects, it’s important to remember that you don’t censor yourself or limit what you write. Even if the service act (such as cleaning toilets) seems obvious or even ridiculous to you, write it down. This is a list just for yourself; it doesn’t need to be perfect!

Once you’ve written down the skills that you’d like, pick a few that you feel most strongly that you’d like to develop. These will be the focus of your first “semester” in SubSkool™. And just as in colleges, your studies can be completed in a wide variety of ways. You can take classes from mainstream colleges or schools – classes on everything from personal accounting, to chauffeuring, to landscaping, to small engine repair is available to you, and often very inexpensively. You can also take classes from experienced submissives and slaves, or from others in the community that have a good grasp on the skillset that you want to develop. You can do individual study – use the internet, books, phone or email interviews, and trial and error to discover ways to perfect the service skills you wish to gain. You can even do a “work study” program by asking a trusted dominant, master, or trainer to guide you in your efforts to practice your skills as you grow.

How do you find classroom space? Look within your community – whether it’s online or in person – and start listening to the people around you talk about service. Listen for the kinds of experiences that you’d like to have, the kinds of skills that you’d like to learn. Approach them – you’re asking for them to mentor you, either briefly (perhaps a quick demo in person) or more long term, such as an ongoing mentorship. Learn the resources that are within your reach – websites like Kink Academy, discussion groups on Fetlife or in Yahoo or Google groups, your local library’s learning resources – and use them! All of the time that you put into building your own skillset as a submissive will pay off in the long run, when you have the opportunity to serve the dominant that you want to serve in a way that shows your value and talents at their finest.

Record-keeping for Sexually Explicit Images

 Posted by on September 10, 2010
Sep 102010
 

by Brian Flaherty

The government has a legitimate interest in curbing traffic in child pornography – of this there is no question. However, as is too often the case, the laws enacted to fight a real problem are entirely ineffective against it, yet manage harm to a population entirely innocent of wrongdoing. In the case of child pornography, a law that looks good to a select group of morality-crusading zealots has had no demonstrable effect on traffic in child pornography, and yet has had real negative consequences for sex educators, consenting adults, and yes, the kinkily inclined.

In 1988, following the release of the now infamous Meese Commission Report on Pornography (pilloried nicely by Pat Califia here), congress enacted the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, which included 18 U.S.C. 2257 and 2257A. This law requires producers of any visual material containing “actual sexually explicit conduct” (and now “lascivious exhibition of the genitals”) to comply with an elaborate record-keeping scheme – including photocopies of government issued IDs of all performers involved – in order to demonstrate that none of the participants in the material were minors. Furthermore, all visual materials have to include a label indicating where these records are kept (we’ve all seen these at the beginning of any commercial porn – something like “the records required by 18 USC 2257 are located…). Further, these records must be made available to the feds for inspection on demand! And in case you cannot see where this is going, yes this law does cover digital photography, taken at home, and posted to your favorite kinky social networking and.. er.. ‘dating’ site.

The arguments against this ludicrous law are legion: it is ineffective against traffic in child pornography, which is entirely underground (the Traci Lords argument notwithstanding); it (caution: legalese ahead) “impermissibly chills legitimate speech” of sex educators, kinky consenting adults, et al.; and it invades the privacy of non-minor participants in the creation of any sexually explicit media by making their IDs open to inspection. Alas, these arguments have been deftly ignored by courts since the enactment of the law. The most comprehensive opinion on the law to date has came out of the sixth circuit court of appeals, where Connection Distributing Co., publishers of a number of swingers magazines featuring personals ads with photographs, challenged the constitutionality of the law for the reasons I’ve outlined above. Long story short, after years of litigation at enormous cost to those involved, Connection lost, and the law was declared okey dokey.

Most recently the Eastern District of Pennsylvania declared the law constitutional once again. This decision was notable because not only was the law challenged by the adult film industry (represented by the Free Speech Coalition), but it was also challenged by a number of sex educators. The plaintiffs included some of my favorite people – Carol Queen, Betty Dodson, Nina Hartley – Adult Sex Educators whose work is directly impacted by the law. Once again, however, the court decided that the law was constitutional, and that any undue burden placed on sex educators, artists, aficionado’s of perverted social media and on the adult film industry at large was justified by this law’s awesome effectiveness at virtually eliminating child pornography (sarcasm added).

So the record-keeping law is still in place – and if the courts have their say, the law is sticking around. And just to be clear, the law explicitly applies to social media. In developing regulations to enforce the law, the Department of Justice wrote: “One who posts sexually explicit activity on “adult” networking sites may well be a…producer. Users of social networking sites may therefore be subject to the [law] depending on their conduct. (73 Federal Register at page 77438)”

But does this mean that the DOJ is going to come knocking on your door tomorrow to ask for IDs for the models in the photos you posted on FetLife? Not likely. The real problem with this law is that it places an undue burden on producers of sexually explicit media to prove that they’re not doing anything wrong. The penalties here – hefty fines and up to 5 years in prison – are not for producing child pornography, but for failing to keep elaborate records that prove that you didn’t produce child porn. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but if they do come knocking, shouldn’t the burden be on the Department of Justice to prove that you did do something wrong? If this law worked well to stem the unfortunate tide of child pornography, I would defend it. It doesn’t. Instead it requires artists, kinky people, and sex educators to keep records and post the whereabouts of those records on what they produce – which in the case of those who cannot afford a record-keeping warehouse, will be their home address. The law is overbroad and unjust – it is another in a pantheon of laws that can be enforced against sexual expression. These laws may not be regularly enforced against our community, but they define some sexual expression as culturally “out of bounds.” Not OK. As a poster or peruser of online amateur porn, this is your fight; as a producer or consumer of explicit sex education, this is your fight. Though you may be incredibly unlikely to find yourself at the wrong end of an 18 USC 2257 enforcement action, this is still your fight.

This presentation has attempted to put to together some legal information on alternative sexualities. Legal Information does not constitute legal advice. If you have specific questions please consult an attorney.

No Is an Acceptable Answer

 Posted by on September 9, 2010
Sep 092010
 

By AliceSin Aerie

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing and of course – even just a little of a bad thing is way too much. One of the simplest but hardest to master skills in life is the utterance of the magic word “no.” While your kinky life may often offer you a respite from your everyday life or may even come to replace that life – never has a skill been more important!

“Quality is superior to quantity in all things. Better one really good cupcake than a mediocre dessert buffet.” – Sarah Sloane

With the number of events, parties, conventions and interesting sexy people in the kink community it is very easy to suddenly find yourself wrung out of every last drop of energy and desire. As in our culture in general, there is a huge amount of pressure to be the person who does the most rather than the person who enjoys what they do the most. I encourage you to challenge this learned admiration of those who chose the mediocre dessert buffet with a battle cry of “MOAR!” Instead, measure your experiences not in number but with regard to quality. Focus on enjoying each moment and drawing that enjoyment out over time instead of rushing through it to get to the next item on an agenda.

I am a firm believer that you can say just about anything to just about anyone and be understood. When it comes to saying no, this is especially important. Success in managing the expectations of others is a tremendous asset. I recommend you stick with the 3 S’s:

Short – Keep your decline of an invitation brief, in most cases a smile and a “no thank you” will do just fine. Also, do not wait to decline an invitation and keep someone else hanging on for your response. If you are trying to avoid hurting someone by hoping their inquiry will just fade away if you ignore it, it won’t. Like in band-aid removal, it will only hurt more deeply for longer if you drag it out.

Sweet – Do thank people for invitations even if you have to say no! An invitation is a compliment. All compliments should be accepted with an acknowledgement. Your presence and participation is desirable – keep your desirability intact or even increase it by being gracious.

Simple – Do not feel obligated to elaborately explain why you cannot accept the invitation unless you are asked. Even then, keep it simple “Thank you for thinking of me, however I already have other plans.” You may have a perfectly valid reason for declining or you may just not feel up for what is being proposed – it doesn’t matter.

One last thought on the matter of “no”, occasions will arise where “no” is not enough. If someone’s invitations, suggestions or advancements are making you feel harassed, let them know you no longer wish to be asked or addressed in such a way and then remove yourself from their company. There is no reason for you to be subject to harassing or threatening behavior. No one can treat you like a doormat unless you allow them to walk all over you. If you let them know your feelings on the matter and they do not leave you be, bring their behavior to the attention of an authority be it a party host or other administrator. Communities both online and otherwise have structure in place to protect community members, seek them out if you need support.

Dear Queer Community, Thanks for the Love – A Chubby Girl

 Posted by on September 9, 2010
Sep 092010
 

by Shanna Katz

The other day, I was asked about why there is so much fat acceptance in the queer community. Now, of course it wasn’t phrased quite as respectfully as that, but I like to think of it in a nicer way.

And it’s a good question. As a fat queer femme, I’ve found much more love, sex and acceptance in the queer community than I ever did when I identified as straight. No doubt, some of this has to do with the fact that I’m now sleeping with people I’m more attracted to, and dating someone I love with all my heart, but in my more slutty days (and I say that word with pride), I, as a fat girl, was getting some first class attention and loving.

I’ve always been some form of fat. From a few pounds overweight to my now plus size and curvaceous figure, fat/heavy/zaftig/big/chubby/plus size has always been language in my life. In the early 2000s, when I started my profile on the beta version of OKCupid, I had lots of people using the term BBW, and people telling me I should put it in my profile. I worked later on for a woman run porn website, and even there, the BBW niche existed. I didn’t want to be a niche, I didn’t want people to message me solely because of my size. I wanted people to like me for me.

The first time I noticed such body acceptance in the queer community was after my first date with J. I read on J’s live journal their thoughts on the date, and at the end, they said “it was amazing. She was a goddess, a neon hair, chubby femme goddess.” While my straight friends were appalled (“how dare this person call you chubby! You’re just curvy!”), I liked hearing that about myself. They didn’t know I was chubby before that date, so it wasn’t being part of a niche, yet they totally recognized, validated, and loved the size part of me.

After that relationship ended, I hooked up with lots of queer people, as I experimented and had fun. Almost every person told me my curves were beautiful, that they loved my bountiful breasts, that they appreciate how hard and how long I could fuck them, with my strong arms. In all of my time pursuing boys while I was straight, I hadn’t heard them tell me I was beautiful, not once, and particularly not BECAUSE of my curves. Heck, I had one guy tell me he was worried I might squish him…because I was 180 lbs.

In the lesbian and queer community, there is both more and less competition that amongst straight women. More, because there are less options to go for, and less, because there are less people going for said option. Because of that, we don’t develop as much of a competitive spirit (I feel), and I see femmes complimenting each other and giving each other tips, rather than trying to be “more” beautiful than each other.

Additionally, for women identified people, or those who have lived as a woman, we all understand that pressures that are put on us; to conform, to be thin, to look like we’re “supposed” to and more. Because of that understanding, we do more, often, to alleviate that pressure, and accepted each other for who we are; size, hair color, and all.

Lastly, we as queer people, are a minority. We understand how much it hurts to be discriminated against for who we are, and for things we cannot always change. We get that we want to be seen as us, as who we are, not as a niche. And that is why, I think, the queer/lesbian community is more fat accepting.

Deviant: A Reflection

 Posted by on September 6, 2010
Sep 062010
 

by Viola

I find that the gym is a great place to think.

Perhaps it’s because I’m competitive – if I can’t run faster or longer than the sweaty guy two treadmills away, I could be more productive listening to podcasts, which were either recorded graduate-level critical theory lectures, or Dan Savage. That’s right, marathon runner, I’m just as awesome. I may have just fallen off the Stairmaster and given myself a horrible bruise while dropping both the f-bomb and my ipod, but I’m thinking really freaking hard!

The gym I went to in DC provided copies of popular women’s magazines, the Yale University Alumni Magazine, and the Sunday New York Times. Three days after attending my first entirely female play party in February, I picked up Cosmo at the gym, read it cover to cover while listening to Dan Savage’s podcast on the eliptical, and wrote the following in an email to Q, a friend and lover, upon arriving home:


… So I’m there, on the elliptical, listening to Dan Savage talk about cheating husbands, swingers, open marriages, and closeted gay men in Texas while thumbing through pages of cheese puffs, souffles made easy, the joys of the tunic, and really horrifically bad articles about sex, and thought ‘I am a nice girl. I am a nice girl, with a nice family, with a nice BA in English from a nice, wholesome woman’s college.’ I live with my 2 cats in a nice, wholesome DC neighborhood with aging hippies, lesbian haircuts, cute old houses, and vegetarian college students. And yet somehow in the midst of this, I could easily be classified as a sexual deviant.

Saturday was a wonderful experience, perhaps because it was one of the most sexually gratifying evenings I’ve ever had. I’ve mostly had vanilla relationships; the occasional dalliance in college, one serious relationship with kind of kinky sex that ended because of infidelity, the girlfriend I dated for 8 months but with only 3 orgasms total during sex, and a fling or two. Always with female bodied people, always with the idea that at some point in my life there would be a ring, a wedding, babies, and parenthood. It still might happen, but I’m not as attached to that idea as I was a week ago. Saturday was different, and it was truly the first time I’ve felt comfortable, accepted, attractive, and satisfied with what I was doing and with whom. Is it hedonism if my feminist sensibilities say it’s more than that?

It bothers me that somehow the most exquisite contentment and feelings of sexual safety are entangled with social taboo, and I do draw a deliberate distinction between what is regarded as taboo in our society and my own feelings surrounding the morality of sexual pleasure. At the moment, I’m talking about the former — the social taboo surrounding age difference, female masculinity, same sex relationships, women of size, consensual non-monogamy, kink, and the deliciously perverse symbiotic relationship of the exhibitionist and the voyeur.

Dan Savage gives advice to a closeted gay man in Texas who wants to date, to a man who wants to buy a woman’s dirty panties, to a woman whose open marriage caused problems once she slept with her neighbor, while I skim inane articles. Savage Love is labeled as “explicit” and Cosmo is being SO DARING talking about everything that could possibly happen before or after sex, as long as the two (only two) people involved are vanilla, heterosexual, monogamous, and privileged. And pretty much every bit of media to which I expose myself makes my own experiences seem that much more out of the ordinary.

Personally, my own Catholic guilt makes me feel dirty about what I like, but that’s without the media. The media (used here not in the Palin-esque way to describe a liberal conglomerate conspiring against Joe the Plumber, but in reference to the print and audio pieces mentioned previously) makes me truly question why we’re still so Victorian. So much repression, so much stigmatizing discourse in the name of purity to the extent that all we do is talk about sex. I pity these women, many of whom must be unsatisfied. I wish that at least once, everyone could experience what I did two nights ago, of wanting, being wanted, safety, and fulfillment.

I’m torn between being surprised by the possibility of being out of the ordinary, and sadness that I may be. How much safer I feel now, as a satisfied, happy “deviant.” How sad it is that I could ever be labeled as such.

I still agree with myself.

Do You Want It?

 Posted by on August 30, 2010
Aug 302010
 

by Megan Andelloux

Many women do. Other women could care less. And some haven’t thought about “wanting it” for years. We’re talking of course about sexual desire. Craving sex. Wanting to be touched. The desire we get to feel intimate.

The libido is such a primal urge, that any threat or perceived threat to our sex-drive cries out for a cure. As most people with access to a TV are now aware, the superstar of sexual pharmaceutical world is Viagra. The little blue pill, manufactured by Pfizer and now over a decade old, works by increasing blood supply to the sexual organs. To date, millions of men have rediscovered their libido thanks to this and similar drugs.

In the post-Viagra age, women’s sexual functioning has been the focus of many a research study. While Pfizer has made some attempt at marketing the little-blue-pill-that-could to women, it has not yet gained widespread acceptance. We are left with that age old question “What do women want?” It turns out (surprise, surprise) that women work differently than men. For the ladies, it has been suggested that desire (and not blood flow) is more often the missing key.

Let’s take a moment to understand that despite claims that there is a need for something like a Female-Viagra, women’s bodies do not necessarily get aroused simply because there is more blood flow to the genitals. It works for men, but not so in women. In fact, most female desire drugs have no effect on blood flow. They work predominantly by affecting serotonin and dopamine levels in the brain, similar to commonly prescribed depression medications. So for the love of god, if someone around you says the words: “Female Viagra”, please tell them desire has little to do with blood flow.

Enter Flibanserin. Originally developed as an anti-depressant, discovery of some interesting side effects lead to it’s proposal as a convenient, fits in your pocket, pharmaceutical fill’er up for the lady-on-the-go’s libido. Manufactured by Boehringer Ingelheim, over the last year the drug has been marketed as the cure for women’s low sexual desire. Expectation around this drug grew and grew, bigger it turns out than the manufacturer could handle. Despite the advertising and the hype, the FDA denied approval to the sexual desire pill last June. Seems that despite a small increase in the number of sexual events women on Flibanserin had, the drug failed quite spectacularly to affect their desire to have sex. Flibanserin hasn’t figured out what women want either.

Opponents of Flibanserin are relieved that it was denied approval. They claim that the drug has not been studied long enough and that it attempts to pathologize normal sexual diversity. Some are even going so far as to claim that it will lead to an increase in domestic violence. We’ve heard similar fears before…when was it again? When was that last outbreak of puritanical fear linked to the sexual boogeyman… oh yes! It was when Viagra first hit the market.

If we are forced to compare Flibanserin to Viagra, let’s at least draw comparison to the real similarities: namely, the media frenzy surrounding its release. At the time of Viagra’s coming out party, sex educators, therapists, and counselors were concerned that people would take Viagra without fully examining WHY they weren’t having erections. Socratic ideals of “the unexamined life” aside, these experts were concerned that Viagra would allow men to have sex when they didn’t feel emotionally ready for it. The fear was that pill-popping would turn men into sexual robots, machines with no chance for attaining the intimacy that could occur if they only just shared their feelings. They were, essentially, afraid of dependence on pills.

Well guess what folks: we are a pill-popping world. But we somehow have avoided the attack of the viagrabots. Neither have rape crimes increased nor have therapists gone out of business. What it did bring about was people having more sex and being happy about it.

Now it’s not my first suggestion to throw a pill at a problem, but we need to be realistic. And simply put, sometimes pills work. And while it’s obvious that Flibanserin (or any other drug designed to increase low sexual desire) needs plenty more research before it’s ready to hit the market, the proper course of action is to give doctors and providers every option available to help their patients. Let’s remember that as professionals, we are there to help people in need.

No one is saying get rid of what works. Many women are being helped with what we have available right now. No one pill is going to put the doctors and therapists out of business. But attempting to limit the availability of medication because of a fear that we take too many pills smells like bad practice to me. Just like in human sexual functioning, there are endless variations of normal. We need to meet people where they are and help them to discover what they can push themselves to do. People can surprise you. But options (thoroughly researched and safety tested options) should be made available, whether you agree with their use or not.

To learn more about women’s sexual desire, pharmaceutical companies, the quest for the “Female Viagra” and sex education, watch Orgasm, Inc. By far, it is my favorite film. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll learn. It gives you a lot of options.

Written by Megan Andelloux, Certified Sexuality Educator, AASECT, Board Certified Sexologist, ACS

www.OhMegan.com

Who are you Going to Call?

 Posted by on August 29, 2010
Aug 292010
 

by Brian Flaherty

If I had my way, the only place Kink and Law would intersect would be in the playroom, and then only after some negotiation. I mean… who doesn’t appreciate a good private-interrogation, salacious-arrest or barter-for-prison-privileges scene? I picture a leather-clad cop, reflective sunglasses, meticulously strapped with an oversized… but I digress. Alas, the intersection of kink and the law is not always so appealing, not always so fortunate.

So where is the unfortunate intersection of Kink and Law? Too often it is around consent; by law you cannot consent to assault – you cannot consent to be harmed. There are some obvious exceptions – sporting events, for example: boxers consent to beat each other senseless in the ring. But you cannot consent to assault – you cannot allow yourself to be harmed – in the context of a sexual relationship. So…that spanking you gave last night? Criminal. That dashing domme who flogged you with little mercy and great care before putting you to bed stung and exhausted? A felon. That violet wand you saved your pennies for? Use it like that, and it’s a dangerous weapon. These are not antiquated uses for arcane laws: they’ve been used against kinksters in recent memory: during a raid in Attleboro, Mass (aka Paddleboro), to convict Dr. Oliver Jovanovic in New York, and as the backbone of Operation Spanner in the UK. Assault laws continue to be used to prosecute consensual BDSM not only in this country but abroad

But kink and the law intersect in other places, too – for example, employment discrimination: Can someone fire you for being kinky outside of work? Child custody: is evidence of a kinky lifestyle admissible at a child-custody hearing? What about zoning? Domestic violence? Obscenity? There are many places where kink and the law intersect, places you’d never go on purpose, but places you may find yourself one day. So while the laws and cases themselves may be fascinating and enlightening, the most important information here must be: what would you do if this happened to you? How would you react? Who would you call? Who’s got your back?

First: how would you react if law enforcement came knocking on your playroom door? Better yet, how should you react if law enforcement came knocking on your door? There are many online guides to your rights when confronted by law enforcement – guides you should read if encounters with police are a real possibility. But if you don’t get to them before official disaster strikes, here are the most important rules to keep in mind:

  1. Be polite but firm – never confrontational or antagonistic.
  2. Ask for a search warrant before allowing an officer into a room. You do not have to let the police into a private space unless they have a warrant (there are a few exceptions to this, discussed in the ACLU publication linked below).
  3. The answer to a casual sounding “mind if I look around” is no. A request for consent doesn’t sound like “will you consent to a search of your premises?”
  4. If you are arrested, do not say anything except “I would like to talk to a lawyer.”

These are just the basics – the things you must know. For a much better discussion of your rights when encountering the police, you should check out the ACLU publication Know Your Rights When Encountering Law Enforcement. And for a discussion of how to deal with law enforcement in BDSM, check out the police tips published by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.

So what’s the next step? If you do get arrested, how do you find a lawyer? And how do you deal with the inevitable media shit-storm that results when sex and law collide? Your first step is to call the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (online at http://www.ncsfreedom.org). In their own words, NCSF is the group that “takes the lead in defending the rights of individuals and groups in the SM-leather-fetish, swing and polyamory communities.” They can help you with the next steps; In many instances they are able to connect you with a kink-aware attorney. They are also able to help you deal with any brewing media storm. If you don’t know about these folks, check out their website, become a member – they do tremendous work, and they deserve your support (so what are you waiting for? Go to their website, click where it says “join today…”).

How else do you turn to find a lawyer? You turn to your community – you look to people who have been there before. You turn to local fetish organizations for help (here in Massachusetts we turn to the fabulous New England Leather Alliance, who in addition to organizing the FFF, does great outreach and advocacy work, and did some great work around the Paddleboro debacle mentioned above). Or…the great thing about kinky social networking is not just that you can get off on all of the pretty pictures, the great thing about social networking is the huge community of people you can turn to. You can look to groups like FetLife’s BDSM & The Law (VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: you do not post a broad “what should I do” inquiry. You already know what you should do: you should find a lawyer. Take the law into your own hands and you’ve got a fool for a client. You should post something about looking for a lawyer). There is no reason to go blindly into a phonebook or lawyer referral service looking for help: you turn to your people.

This presentation has attempted to put to together some legal information on alternative sexualities. Legal Information does not constitute legal advice. If you have specific questions please consult an attorney.

A Key To Understanding Catholic Moral Theology

 Posted by on August 29, 2010
Aug 292010
 

By Richard Wagner

In this my inaugural column, I’d like to give you one simple cipher that will help you decode, and hopefully put in perspective, the whole of Roman Catholic moral (sexual) theology. I put the word sexual in parenthesis because, even though the Church insists that moral theology encompasses social justice, medical ethics and various other doctrine on individual moral virtue; it is sex that is THE Catholic sin. It’s also the only reason this column is being written.

In mid-July the Vatican issued a revised set of in-house rules in response to the international clerical sex abuse scandal. Nothing new surfaced in these dictums. For example, we won’t be seeing the transparency victim advocacy groups are looking for, nor will there be a “one-strike and you’re out” policy for pedophile priests. And bishops still aren’t expected to report molester priests to civil authorities. (I’ll address some of these issues in a later column.) But for now I have another reason for calling your attention to this particular Vatican ruling; and it is not clergy sex abuse.

These new Vatican rules cover the canonical (Church law) penalties and procedures used for the most grave crimes in the church. As one would suspect, the Vatican considers clerical sex abuse a “grave crime”. What no one was expecting, certainly not in a document that deals with pedophile clergy, was the startling inclusion of the attempted ordination of women as a “grave crime” subject to the same set of procedures and punishments meted out for sex abuse.

This drew immediate criticism from many Catholic women and men, who said making women priests the moral equivalent of child rapists was deeply offensive.

Despite the repugnant nature of this Vatican rule, it does clearly elucidate the cipher I promised I’d give you. To get a handle on Catholic moral theology one must first grasp the depth and breath of it’s institutionalized misogyny.

Less than a hundred years ago, women had little standing in the church. Women were not allowed to receive communion during their monthly periods; and after giving birth to a child they needed to be ‘purified’ (or ‘churched’ as it was called) before re-entering a church building.

Women were strictly forbidden to touch ‘sacred objects’, such as the chalice, the paten or altar linen. They were certainly never to distribute Holy Communion. And while in church, a woman needed to have her head veiled at all times.

Women were also barred from:

  • entering the sanctuary except for cleaning purposes;
  • reading Sacred Scripture from the pulpit;
  • preaching;
  • singing in a church choir;
  • being servers at Mass.

But the most important restriction of all — women were barred from receiving Holy Orders; being ordained as deacons, priests or bishops.
When I was in seminary in the mid 1970’s the movement to ordain women was just finding its footing. The official rationale for refusing women to the priesthood back then, as it is now, is that a priest must physically resemble Jesus. The priest acts ‘in the person of Christ’. Since Jesus was a man, only a male priest can signify Christ at the Eucharist.

I used to get such a kick out of that reasoning, because when I was ordained the bishop laid his hands on my head to ordain me. And since women also have heads, I just figured that the bishop was laying his hand on the wrong part of my anatomy if he wanted the part that made me physically resemble Jesus.

The truth of the matter is that every aspect of Catholic moral theology from birth control to homosexuality; from the ordination of women to pre-marital sex, from abortion to celibacy is rooted in a medieval theology that still holds sway today. Every woman is ‘a defective male’, ‘born through an accident’, ‘a monster of nature’; as Thomas Aquinas put it. Procreation was attributed to the father alone: the whole future child is carried in his sperm. The mother was seen to be only the ‘soil’ in which the seed developed.

Institutionalized misogyny of this magnitude leaves some Catholic faithful in a quandary. How do I remain faithful to my baptism, but resist what, I know in my heart, is not right? The answer is the principle of the primacy of one’s conscience. According to this belief, one must follow the sure judgment of his/her conscience even when, through no fault of one’s own, it might be mistaken. This is the cornerstone of all Catholic, and indeed all Christian, teaching. No law, no dictum, no dogma can take precedence over an individual’s conscience. Our conscience is our connection with our God.

This principal has allowed tens of thousands of Catholics over the years, both religious and lay; to stand against the unconscionable second-class status afforded women in the Church. And despite institutional resistance, great strides have been made over the last fifty years in toppling this gender-based injustice. Women are now included in many aspects of church life that were once closed to them.

Column Introduction

 Posted by on August 29, 2010
Aug 292010
 

by Micah Schnieder

I always love it when the Universe provides me with ready-made answers, don’t you? When I was first asked to write a column on polyamory for fearlesspress.com, I was immediately hit by all the possibilities. What to write about first? Where to start?

Two weeks later, I found my answer.

I attended the first meeting of a new poly discussion group not far from where I live. It was held in a local sandwich chain restaurant. The group that sponsors it is actually run by one of my partners. A surprising number of people showed up, representing a wide cross section of poly people. The topic was on being out.

During the course of the discussion, someone asked why we thought it was important for poly people to be out of the closet. I jumped on it immediately, because, to me, it’s obvious. It is just as important for poly people, poly families, to be out and visible now as it was for gay and lesbian people to be out in the 1960s and 70s. In June of 1969, New York City police battled with the gay patrons of the Stonewall on Christopher Street. Forty-one years later, I watched the openly gay and lesbian members of the New York City Police Department parade past the very same spot in full dress uniform.

That is why we must be out. Gay rights didn’t advance while people lived their lives in secret. Poly rights won’t, either. Today, a large number of people, perhaps even a majority in some places, know at least one person that identifies as gay, bisexual, lesbian, even trans. Imagine if in forty years, we could say the same thing about polyamorous people!

There are a lot of ways to be poly, and there are just as many ways to be out and poly. Tell your family. Take your husband and your girlfriend to the company picnic. Register all three of your partners as emergency contacts at your child’s school. Join poly support groups and mailing lists. Go to public poly events. Write letters to newspapers when they run articles about polyamory. Read blogs like this one, comment on them, share them with your friends.

I can hear some of you thinking it. Aren’t I preaching to the choir, on this website? Yes and no. There are plenty of kinky people that are poly. But I bet that many of them are as closeted about their polyamorous lifestyles as they are closeted about what they like to do to their loved ones in the bedroom. If even just one of you comes out to a friend or family member because you read this, if I caught you at just the right time to give you the nudge you needed, we are all lifted up. The more of us that are visible, in whatever small way we can be, the better it is for all polys everywhere.

I can hear some others of you thinking something else. Not everyone can risk being out. Maybe you are one of them. Sadly, this is true. There are poly people that have lost their jobs, their homes, their children, because close-minded people held their lifestlyes against them. The parallels between us and the early gay rights activists are numerous. Hell, to the current gay rights activists, too. And like many of them, I believe that poly people like me, who can be out, must be out for those of us that can’t, so that some day, all of us can be.

What better way to begin a new blog on polyamory than to come out? I already live my life about as openly as anyone can, but I don’t know very many people on this website. So…

Hello! My name is Micah. I’m a poly, kinky, pagan, heteroflexible, sex-positive, pro-feminist, almost-forty white male. I live in a large home in western Massachusetts with my family of four adults. We have a dog, four cats and a pretty interesting life. I’m going to share some of it with you here, and talk about our issues, problems and triumphs. We’re all activists, and I’ll probably talk about that a lot. We’re all kinky, too, and I’m definitely going to talk about that.

I hope you’ll join me!

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