“I just wanted you to know that Connecticut just legalized same-sex marriage.”
-pause-
“Yeah, really.”
-pause-
“So you think you and Joe will be up for a three-way later tonight?”

Of course, it’s not what you’d like to think. This trio often conference-call — usuallly while playing video games.

I’m glad that Connecticut’s “separate-but-equal” civil unions were a short-lived avenue for my fellow citizens and I’m delighted we now have true legal equality. I’m even more proud of my kids who, now as young adults, eagerly celebrated the news.

But then I thought back to my college years, years which saw the invention of the wet t-shirt contest, t&a jiggling on weekly television, and Farah Fawcett posters. We even had insincere girl-on-girl, but it happened during menage a trois moments, not on the dancefloor in hopes of a hook-up. Given that, I’d say women’s claim to power remains almost as unresolved now as it was then. We have a more public life, but it hasn’t actually granted us more power, and the only places we’ve made clearly visible headway are in college and workplace populations.

In other words, the song largely remains the same.

I look as well to my own teenage daughter and her friends, none of whom have adopted the trappings of raunch. All seniors in high school, they remain sensible in dress and attitude and routinely turn their backs on Girls Gone Wild and The Girls Next Door. To them, thongs remain silly things that get stuck in your ass. Why waste your time with such discomfort and distraction?

They seem, in fact, to be the very kind of young women Levy longs for in her book: Young women who spend their time developing their identities around their interests, talents, and growing independence. None of them are considering big party schools for college, either.

But that doesn’t render the discussions that Levy’s book provokes useless. It is important to understand how pervasive raunch is in our culture, and it’s valuable to understand where we adopt and reject in various aspects of our lives. However, I simply can’t be an alarmist when I see young women like my daughter and her friends who completely reject raunch in all its permutations. I can’t be an alarmist about it when the wet t-shirt contests of my day were almost as revealing and raunchy as flashing tit is today. (And, hell, woman have been flashing tit since the start of biker’s gatherings. I’m thinking Laconia here, folks.)

Yes, the song remains the same. We just never got around to rewriting the lyrics.

Heck, anyone else notice how Yahoo!’s been canning porn groups left and right lately? How about all the sites Wire mentioned? Yup, that’s the chill.

The whole thing takes the wind out my sail when it comes to Mary Carey’s recent meet-the-president coup. I was going to celebrate the fact that pariah capitalism had a place at the RNC table — that their money was as good as any other capitalist’s — but now I can only take scant satisfaction that the fundie right had “a moment” over Mary Carey’s over-the-top appearance.

Critical links:

PDF Overview of 2257 regulations .

Every Webmaster’s Primer on 2257 Compliance By J.D. Obenberger.

New 2257 Regs: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly By Mark Kernes.

The Latest news at AVN.

Special thanks to Adrienne Benedicks at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association for the links.

We can only hope that the injunction will be broadened to include all websites as objections to the regulation proceeds through the courts.

You might remember that I wrote about asexuality here a while ago. My son considers himself asexual and, yes, he has underlying conditions – pervasive development delays that essentially make him a middle schooler in an adult man’s body (possibly Asperger’s) and he takes a pretty high dose of Paxil to avoid debilitating depression so bad he can’t function at all. Plus, he’s had hormonal shutdowns in the past, severe enough to require the oversight of a pediatric endocrinologist.

His mind says he’s not adult enough for sexuality, his pills depress his sexual functioning, and his hormones claim they’re catching up for lost time. But by saying he’s asexual he’s relieved of the burden that yet something more is wrong with him. Claiming asexuality lets him engage in life without worrying about what’s not yet there. As well, he has warm relationships with many people, so I’m not worried about his ability to bond with others. He is not detached from life or people.

Yes, my son’s asexual identity might be a temporary identity and a more sexually active identity might emerge as he matures but, for now, asexuality lets him live without daily worry and concern.

I’ve come to think that sexual awareness has a generational life cycle anyway. You can see it in the recent NY Times articles about sex manuals (reprinted via the AZ Central) and those rites of passage, health films. From the “Joy of Sex” that moved people beyond a basic prescription for fucking – and for putting the word, joy, in the mix for generations of people who feared sex as they came into the era of the birth control pill – to the more explicitly illustrated and casually-accepting prose of today’s how-to books, you can see not only progress but recurrent themes within the progress. In other words, we may be more open to depictions but, if the sex films are an indication, we still strive to overcome an innate ignorance about the life cycle of our sexuality.

I’m pleased to know that, despite the ongoing pressure of social prudery, we still strive for openness and knowledge over ignorance. And if my son ever moves from his asexual identity, I’m pleased the books that might help him with whatever his new sexual identity might be will be waiting for him.

‘Nuff said.

PBS hasn’t exactly been displaying a badge of courage, either, has it? (Can you say cowering? Sure, you can.)

While we might not be ushering in a culture of true suppression or censorship, we’re certainly seeing a lot of cowardice in the public circle. And pandering. Of course, not everyone sees Spellings’ actions as an act of merit, but then again, we’re the blue coast talking. We don’t count. Need proof? Let’s see is Spellings complains about this public university’s use of taxpayer money.

CYes, I’m frustrated? So much so that I intend to write a letter to Spellings about her actions.)

Too bad poor Buster’s gotten caught up in all this. He’s a fine blogger and now he’ll have to censor himself.

Dear Readers: You now have new and improved comments, so give them a spin when the urge moves you. Also, I’m slowly updating my author pages to make them more Firefox friendly. Some of the pages have met my expectations, but a few need more tweaks and it’s slow going for me. (Repeat to self: I am not a programmer.) I expect it’ll take a couple more days to get the pages where I want them, but I don’t expect this to affect my blogging. I got links and esoterica to share with you, so check back frequently. I’ll be here.

Which got me thinking. If we rolled back time and returned to the pre-Kinsey times of sexual repression and ignorance, what would it be like? Well, by way of example, every one of these things that I browsed in recent days would be illegal:

Carly’s Pornoblography and just about every other sexblog out there. And Carly would probably get arrested for pandering.

An ebook copy of Piers Anthony’s Pornucopia.

A pair of boxers bearing Tom o’ Finland illustrations ala chintz.

Allan Teger’s Bodyscapes. (Which make nice gifts. I got the butt skiing one for my birthday.)

Annie Sprinkle making an erotic patriotic gesture.

And — wait for it — Dennis Leary’s left nut (Go Sox!)

Think about it. What kind of erotic content have you come across lately that would evaporate if we returned to the days of the Comstock laws? Send me your examples and I’ll try to list them in coming days. Be ingenious in your finds and keep your samples playful, OK?

Note: Card from a pack of cards promoting the movie, Kinsey. Read the New Yorker article ASAP; the magazine’s contents turn over quickly.

I’m deeply discouraged when I hear stories like this one, one where a major politic player doesn’t think twice about sacrificing other people’s wellbeing for the sake of winning. And I’m deeply dismayed by America’s willingness to deny rights to GLBT Americans. Fortunately, Kerry resoundingly declined Clinton’s advice as a matter of principle. I’ll take that as a glimmer of hope, despite the grey clouds coming in from the west, where Red reigns.

I care greatly about queer equality rights. I’m bisexual and although I can exercise heterosexual priviledge anytime I want, should I fall in love with a woman and want to build a life with her, much of my privilege vanishes. I’m not entitled simply because of who I love.

As a bisexual, I’m not always included in the queer community. I’ve kept my het marriage intact and to many queers, that’s enough to make me the poster child for het privilege. (This, despite the fact that I could very well become a PFLAG parent in coming years.) So often I tread a fine line between the two worlds and it’s not an easy place to be at times.

Fortunately, two of my colleagues see me as queer and welcome my voice, namely Ian Philips and Greg Wharton, and I’m pleased to be part of their ambitious anthology, I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage. In its 382 pages, from its 140 contributors, the opinions sprawl all over the place. As the webcopy says:

“Some consider this a fight for equality. Some see it as the wrong fight. Many are anxiously waiting a chance to wed. Many others find the idea absurd. I Do/I Don’t collects a diverse array of queer voices on the subject of marriage. Stars and ordinary Janes. Saints and sinners. Anarchists and poets. Journalists and dreamers. Personal essays, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, vows, rants, love letters, and sermons. Silly to serious. In favor and against. Yay and nay, in between, neither, and D) all of the above. All valid. All from inside the community.”

I’ll continue my efforts to keep GLBT news and concerns in the mix here at Pursed Lips. After all, history tells us that when society tries to oppress sexual freedom, it oppresses it for all, not some. It has oppressed it for the unmarried, the queer, those of us who enjoy countless variations, and even for married couples. Remember sex for procreation only? Remember, today’s ban against same-sex marriage could escalate into a ban against your favorite practice tomorrow. We’re all at risk here — and don’t let your own prejudices tell you otherwise.

]]> http://pursedlips.com/2004/11/03/i-heard-this-morning-that/feed/ 0 http://pursedlips.com/2004/11/02/four-more-years/ http://pursedlips.com/2004/11/02/four-more-years/#comments Wed, 03 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Debra Hyde journurl:Arts/debrahyde/735 And I’m deeply saddened by it all. Saddened that a significant portion of America’s population either failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam or chose to conveniently forget them because it puts a smile on their face to be led like lambs. It saddens me to see that my centrist-to-slightly-left self has become even more marginalized in today’s society and government. From now on, only red voices will be heard. Blue voices will cry and toil in modern desperation.

It saddens me that both of my children will reach draft age during the next administration and all it will take is a couple of skirmishes on the Syrian border to give us a new Cambodia — and the draft. It embitters me to think that, in that scenario, my disabled son will be excused from service but my healthy daughter will not. (And, please — no “noncombat” comments. Plenty of people are dying in noncombat roles right now.)

I mourn the possibility that there will never be a cure for my son’s psycho/neurological disabilities because stem cell research — our new Scopes Monkey trial — will not occur on American entrepreneurial shores.

It terrifies me that our Supreme Court will likely become aggressively conservative, perhaps even draconian should Scalia ascend to the throne as more of his ilk come to power via new appointments. (Yes, conservative judges are very likely because of the continued shift to the right in the Senate.) I pray Nitke v Ashcroft successfully dismantles that part of the CDA which deals with “community” — and definitively enough that the Supreme Court will decline to consider it. Even so, we can count on bold challenges to our reproductive rights, personal privacy, gay rights, and civil liberties.

And if all this wasn’t bad enough, I watched people in eleven states mandate marital exclusion for gay and lesbian Americans. My heart breaks for my friends and loved ones, many of whom will not only find themselves excluded from marriage but from any accordance of domestic and perhaps civil equality whatsoever. (See Ohio’s draconian ban for the details.)

Our culture war has blazed back and it’s me, my children, and my loved ones everywhere who will get burned by it. Give me space to mourn, but of this be certain: I’ll take my place among the ranks and continue the fight for social freedoms. I won’t give up.

And when you approach the voting booth, please consider which party is more likely to extend rights rather than restrict freedoms. See you after the elections.

Certainly Good To Be In Dixie isn’t as well-conceived a video as the Spiridellis’ first, but the brotherly team grabbed the headlines as they saw them at the time of the video’s conception, which made the video broadly topical rather than broadly caricatured. Nothing was sacred, especially in its “in your face” gay news. Let’s see: The media and pundits jumped all over Kerry’s and Edwards’ chumminess with homoerotic comments? Check. McGreevy coming out? Check. McCain going both ways? Check — and priceless! Every lefty’s inner naughty dream of comeuppance: That Ashcroft would come out? Check. And bonus points for that last one.

But does its quick fall from visibility lie therein? I’m certainly wondering and I’m close to concluding that America doesn’t appreciate “in your face” expressed humorously.

Sheesh. Get over it, America.

I found the whole send-up hilarious, but I like queer humor. (And I didn’t see the Jibjab presentation as a queer-face minstrel show, but I’m willing to listen to any GLBT folks who did. Tell me why you found it offensive.) However, I watched enough straight people not laugh as much as they did at the first video, some even growing somber as the queer jokes mounted, to realize we have a ways to go before you can tolerate fag jokes slapped upside your head. And however prescient it might’ve been, it’s good that the Jibjab guys got this video out* before the whole Mary Cheney flap happened.

Personally, I want a t-shirt with Ashcroft yelling “I’m gay!” I can’t think of a more hopeful expression for the future and a finer way to show my appreciation for the Spirdellis’s broad parodies.

* Pun optional