Porn debate: Gail Dines versus Anna Arrowsmith.

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From The Guardian:

Can sex films empower women?

Former home secretary Jacqui Smith this reopened the debate about the impact of the sex industry on society with her BBC Radio 5 documentary about pornography. Here, Gail Dines, professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston, and author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, and Anna Arrowsmith, a former Liberal Democrat candidate who makes pornographic films under the name Anna Span, discuss the issues. Emine Saner listens in.

Gail Dines: I'm concerned about what it means to live in a society that is overwhelmed by images created by predatory capitalists whose job is to maximise profits. Pornography is the commodification of sexuality and the product is plasticised and lacks any individuality. My feeling is that you're talking from a more personal perspective, and there are certainly ways in which some women can make pornography work for them. My issue is beyond you and me, and into a more political analysis of what it means to live in a society where women are systematically discriminated against, and then have a juggernaut called pornography shaping the way men think about us – the same men who go on to make laws and policy that impact on the lives of women.

Anna Arrowsmith: I used to be anti-pornography until I realised my anger was jealousy – I was envious of men having their sexuality catered for. I realised the best thing I could do was to work towards women learning their own sexual identity. I'm not just coming from a personal experience – I've been chair of the adult industry trade association in the UK. We don't get well represented in the media, we're a soft target, using moral panics to say we're the devil, and that if you just get rid of pornography, amazingly women will get full equality.

Read the rest of the excellent debate here.

And in modelling news...

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From the CBC:

72-year-old grandpa models for teen-girl fashion line

Liu Xianping has got the “it-model” look down pat; lean physique, chic gamine haircut, a sassy stance and coltish legs displayed in a pair of thigh-high stockings.

At first glance, one might not even notice that he’s a 72-year-old man in teen girl clothing. But that’s exactly what’s winning him fans in his home country of China and across the world right now.

Liu became an unlikely fashion icon after modeling pieces for his granddaughter’s online female clothing shop Yuekou- link.

The shop, owned by Liu’s granddaughter Ms. Lv and four of her college friends, is hosted on China’s leading online retail website Tmall.

According to Offbeat China, Liu had been helping the young ladies unpack their inventory when inspiration struck.

“He picked up one piece and tried to give some advice on how to mix and match,” said Lv to China Newsweek. “We thought it was fun so we started shooting.”

Liu ended up styling so many outfits that the girls used him to model their entire collection with a variety of different wigs and accessories.

The clothes fit Liu's slender frame perfectly. Sales have reportedly increased five-fold since the photos were uploaded, pleasing the shop's owners and their newfound muse too.

“Modeling for the store is helping my granddaughter and I have nothing to lose," said Liu to China Newsweek. "We were very happy on the day of the shooting. I’m very old and all that I care about is to be happy.”

Offbeat China reports that "reactions from local netizens have been overwhelmingly positive."

“He has such a good figure, especially those legs!” said a young woman named Satsuki on the Chinese microblogging website Weibo, a website that is often referred to as the Chinese Facebook or Twitter.

Others called him cool, fun, stylish, open-minded and compared him with Chanel creative director and fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld.

English-speaking audiences are just as charmed by the stylish senior's look and attitude.

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Project Unbreakable

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TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE.

This is one of the most powerful projects I've come across. As described on the project's homepage:

Project Unbreakable was created in October of 2011 by Grace Brown. Grace works with survivors of sexual assault, photographing them holding a poster with a quote from their attacker. Grace has photographed over two hundred people and has received over a thousand submissions.

It's heart wrenching to go through the photos - I can't imagine the amount of courage it must have taken for these people to participate.

Some samples:

Visit the site, and see the rest of the photos, here.

Documentary: Graphic Sexual Horror.

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(download link at bottom)

Regarding paraphilias (i.e., kinks), basically, what it boils down to is that as long as sex (or play) is consensual in the true sense (i.e., all people involved are able to freely give consent, absent of any major power imbalance, soft coercion, desperation, etc.), it's really nobody's business what the participants choose to do. Of course, there will always be exceptions, but generally speaking, this rule seems to be well-supported.

The notion of consent and manipulation is one of the main themes explored in the documentary Graphic Sexual Horror, which delves into the world of Insex, a BDSM content website that featured live online shows.

After a few years of great financial success, Insex eventually was forced to shut its doors after being pursued by US federal prosecutors. Rather than fight a lengthy and expensive legal battle, the owner PD (who was coincidentally a former Carnegie Mellon professor) sold the company. You can read more about Insexhere.

Before the company was sold, Synapse Films spent some time at Insex, which culminated in this documentary. The entire documentary is interesting, but what's perhaps most fascinating are the interviews with the women who were featured in the content.

The documentary homepage is here.

The following is from a review of Graphic Sexual Horror posted at Twitch:

The phrase "Graphic Sexual Horror" actually derives from the all-caps warning that would greet visitors at the threshold to the Insex.Com Web site during its heyday roughly a decade ago. But one can't be blamed for thinking that the title pairs well with the somewhat sensationalistic marketing copy from releaser Synapse. No, the fact that this is a documentary is never concealed, but that doesn't really diminish the lurid appeal--in fact, the promise that everything is real only adds to the titillation.

Of course that's the same lure of realism that attracted some 35,000 subscribers to "PD" Brent Scott's unique BDSM online community and interactive gallery. Shooting on stark sets sporting a "rundown, industrial look" and featuring a grim, deadpan aesthetic that gave some the impression that PD "really had captured the girls," the Insex team specialized in creative live feed sessions that allowed customers to provide real-time input and feedback. The young models would frequently plead for mercy from all sorts of gnarly acts of sadism (one that stays with you: red pepper flakes applied to the genitalia), but per S/M protocol there was always a "safe word" in reserve that they could invoke if things became too unbearable.

One might expect a doc covering such subject matter to be fairly predictable in its exploitational leanings. Yet by showing the motivations of each model to test her own psychological/physical limits--and PD's tendency to manipulate such motivating factors--Graphic Sexual Horror begins to address all sorts of intriguing and totally unexpected questions. Is there such a thing as self-exploitation? And what's to distinguish simple exhibitionism, and those who would leverage it for profit, from a legitimate, artistic, and maybe spiritual exploration of the body's limits? (I'm including "spiritual" because ecstatic states similar to those depicted in the horror flick Martyrs are briefly, but convincingly, touched upon.)

You can read the rest of the review here.

Download Graphic Sexual Horrorhere (for academic purposes only!).

WARNING: the documentary features hardcore sex, BDSM, simulated and real sexual violence. There's one scene, in particular, in which PD tries to convince a performer to continue when she clearly does not want to - it's extremely upsetting and difficult to watch. If you choose to watch the documentary, please proceed with great caution. It is a trigger for sexual violence.

50 Shade of Grey cited as cause of divorce.

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From the Daily Mail:

50 Shades of Divorce: Wife 'inspired' by erotic book says husband failed to meet her expectations
It's had a major impact on the publishing world – and in quite a few bedrooms.
But now Fifty Shades Of Grey is at the centre of an unusual court case.
A man is being divorced by his wife after he refused to spice up their love life by reliving scenes from the erotic bestseller.
The wife, a 41-year-old banker earning more than £400,000 a year, claims her husband’s ‘boring attitude’ to sex is evidence of ‘unreasonable behaviour’.
In her grounds for divorce, filed at the High Court, she refers to the novel, which tells of the sadomasochistic affair between billionaire Christian Grey and naive student Anastasia Steele. The woman in the court case bought the raunchy book almost as soon as it was published last year and hoped it would encourage her husband to be more adventurous in bed.
She bought some sexy underwear but her husband failed to respond to her advances and he even blamed her behaviour on ‘that bloody book’.
Now she has petitioned for divorce citing his alleged low libido as evidence of ‘unreasonable behaviour’, one of the five grounds for divorce under English law. The wife’s solicitor, Amanda McAlister, a family law expert, believes the case is the first where the new phenomenon of ‘mummy porn’ has triggered a divorce.
She said: ‘The woman had been reading the book and wanted to spice up her love life.
‘She thought their sex life had hit a rut – he never remembered Valentine’s Day and he never complimented her on her appearance. So she bought sexy underwear in an attempt to get her husband more involved. She said, “Let’s make things more interesting”.
‘But when he still didn’t take any notice she told him he had a boring attitude to sex and she was fed up.
‘He went ballistic when he found out the name of the book she was reading and told her, “It’s all because you have been reading that bloody book”.’
The husband is admitting ‘unreasonable behaviour’ so the divorce can be granted quickly without a contested hearing in which his alleged low libido would be discussed in court.
Miss McAlister, of Russell Jones and Walker, claims the case is evidence of a social change where women have been encouraged to become more adventurous in the bedroom.
She said: ‘There has been a real shift in sexual attitudes.
‘It used to be the men who complained they weren’t getting enough nookie in the bedroom.
‘But now it’s the women who are calling their husbands boring after reading books like Fifty Shades.’
The novel is the first in a trilogy by British author EL James which have sold more than 60million copies worldwide. James – real name Erika Mitchell – describes her books as ‘romantic fantasy’ stories that offer women a ‘holiday from their husbands’.
The 49-year-old mother of two is said to be worth almost £4million after signing book deals on both sides of the Atlantic and a Hollywood movie contract.
The books have sparked a ‘mummy porn’ genre with publishers rushing to bring out more similar erotic fiction. One academic has even claimed the success of Fifty Shades has led to a baby boom after revitalising the sex lives of married couples.

The Pervocracy: The Myth of the Boner Werewolf

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From The Pervocracy:

There's a pernicious myth out there that the male sex drive is unstoppable and irresistible--that once a man is aroused, he literally cannot control his actions. We tell jokes about "thinking with the other head" and "all the blood went out of his brain" that aren't entirely jokes. We have a cultural narrative in which sexual arousal makes a man into a goddamn werewolf.
And we expect women to tiptoe around this uncontrollable male sexuality. We tell them to watch how they dress, lest they wake the beast. We tell them "some guys can't control themselves"--not won't, but can't. We tell them to be careful what they start, because they'll be expected to finish it. Hell, way too often we outright tell them that they have no right to withdraw consent once sex has started.
My response to myths like this, more and more, is "shit, if I believed that, I'd never have sex with a man again." I wonder if the story would change if more guys realized that saying "if a woman gets me turned on, she'd better be ready to go all the way" is the same as saying "getting me turned on is dangerous, better not take the risk."
Then again, I wonder why more men aren't just insulted by the whole concept. If someone started telling stories about how my gender was controlled by our genitalia and sexual arousal turns us into rapist automatons, I would be outraged. I would explain in very small, very loud words that I am a person and I can goddamn control myself. I wish more men would speak up to say "actually, even when I can't turn my erection off, I can sure as hell use the rest of my body to put it somewhere it won't bother anyone."
I wish our culture prized self-control as much as it does virility, and even more, I wish our culture didn't act like they were opposites. Even I can't 100% shake the worry that the story at the top makes Rowdy sound desexualized or submissive, (or super nice and extra feminist, rather than "bare minimum of human decency") even though all it describes is him not raping me.
Men aren't rollercoasters. They aren't werewolves. They aren't walking penises. They're people. They make decisions. Let's stop talking about "he couldn't stop himself" and start talking about "he decided not to stop." Men deserve that dignity, and the responsibility that comes with it.

Autoandrophilia.

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Autogynephilia is a "man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman" (Blanchard, 2004). Someone asked if the same phenomenon exists in women. A student from class did some poking around on the CrossDreamers website and found some case studies of autoandrophiliacs, or women who are turned on by thinking of themselves as men. Here is one of the cases:

She enjoyed having sex as a woman with men but also particularly enjoyed living out her sexual fantasy of being male with a penis. She was a self-declared bisexual who, apart from having sex with Robert [her husband] and other couples, would also go off to visit female sex workers herself. She particularly enjoyed the fantasy of raping someone else. This was generally played out with female sex workers who would be accommodating and compliant with the fantasy to her satisfaction. The only male she carried out this sex fantasy with was her husband Robert and at the time of penetrating him she said she clearly envisioned herself as a man with a penis, dominant, powerful and aggressive. Clair was quite clear that although she might run these fantasies in her mind they were just sexual fantasies.

There are several others, all worth reading. You can find them here.

Exodus International changes position on conversion therapy.

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Exodus International is one of the most prominent organizations in the conversion therapy world. Among the many things they're know for, perhaps the two projects that have received the most attention are their app, which is intended to help people extinguish their same-sex sexual attraction, and their involvement in shaping Uganda's extremely severe laws against homosexuality. It's now considered one of the worst places to live, on the entire planet, if you're a homosexual.

Recently, Exodus have started to change their tune. From the New York Times:

Rift Forms in Movement as Belief in Gay ‘Cure’ Is Renounced
For more than three decades, Exodus International has been the leading force in the so-called ex-gay movement, which holds that homosexuals can be “cured” through Christian prayer and psychotherapy.
Exodus leaders claimed its network of ministries had helped tens of thousands rid themselves of unwanted homosexual urges. The notion that homosexuality is not inborn but a choice was seized on by conservative Christian groups who oppose legal protections for gay men and lesbians and same-sex marriage.
But the ex-gay movement has been convulsed as the leader of Exodus, in a series of public statements and a speech to the group’s annual meeting last week, renounced some of the movement’s core beliefs. Alan Chambers, 40, the president, declared that there was no cure for homosexuality and that “reparative therapy” offered false hopes to gays and could even be harmful. His statements have led to charges of heresy and a growing schism within the network.
“For the last 37 years, Exodus has been a bright light, arguably the brightest one for those with same-sex attraction seeking an authentically Christian hope,” said Andrew Comiskey, founder and director of Desert Stream Ministries, based in Kansas City, Mo., one of 11 ministries that defected. His group left Exodus in May, Mr. Comiskey said in an e-mail, “due to leader Alan Chambers’s appeasement of practicing homosexuals who claim to be Christian” as well as his questioning of the reality of “sexual orientation change.”
In a phone interview Thursday from Orlando, Fla., where Exodus has its headquarters, Mr. Chambers amplified on the views that have stirred so much controversy. He said that virtually every “ex-gay” he has ever met still harbors homosexual cravings, himself included. Mr. Chambers, who left the gay life to marry and have two children, said that gay Christians like himself faced a lifelong spiritual struggle to avoid sin and should not be afraid to admit it.

Read the rest here.

John Corvino

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From his YouTube channel:

John Corvino, also known as "The Gay Moralist," is chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the author of Debating Same-Sex Marriage, co-written with Maggie Gallagher, and has spoken at over 200 university campuses on ethics, sexuality, and marriage.

All his videos are excellent, but this one, in particular, stands out:

What does it mean when people call same-sex relations "unnatural," and why should that judgment matter anyway? Philosopher John Corvino takes apart this claim, demonstrating that, in the usual cases, it's empty rhetorical flourish. Dr. John Corvino, also known as the "Gay Moralist," is a writer, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Watch the rest of his videos here.

RCMP: It Gets Better.

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There are literally hundreds and hundreds of IGB videos, many from high-profile individuals and groups. The breadth of people and organizations that have submitted videos is evidence that a major shift in attitudes is taking place. There's still a long way to go, but I don't think we're that far off from a time when sexual identity is non-issue, which is good. The RCMP released this IGB video yesterday, and it's been making the rounds through most news and media outlets.

The RCMP is the latest group to create a video in the "It Gets Better" theme -- aimed primarily at youth. Championed by the Surrey RCMP Youth Unit, the 20 participants taped interviews in the summer of 2012. The video was finalized, by BC RCMP Multi-media services in the fall of 2012.


Pansexual?

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I love you as a pansexual, I love you as a bisexual, or whatever else you want to identify as. But just remember that when you tell me my identity is wrong, you're like the billionth person, for the billionth reason.