Full Frontal Politics free speech from a phone sex operator

‘SEX WORKER VISIONS’
OPENING TOMORROW

$pread Magazine Produces Sex Industry Art Exhibit

NEW YORK, NY – $pread, a quarterly magazine by and for sex workers and their allies, presents Sex Worker Visions, an exhibition featuring art by sex workers and about the sex industry, at the LGBT Community Center David Bohnett Cyber Center at 208 West 13th Street, New York City, from March 29 – May 20. Visions kicks off with an opening reception on March 29 from 6 to 9 pm.

Visions is curated by Audacia Ray, Executive Editor of $pread and former Assistant Curator at the Museum of Sex. Artists include sex activist and educator Heather Corinna, former SuicideGirl and illustrator Molly Crabapple, exotic dancer and photographer Charise Isis, and former prostitute and filmmaker Anne Hanavan, as well as Paul Sarkis and George Pitts’ intimate portraits of porn stars. Photographs by Erin Siegal and illustrations by Fly and Cristy Road originally appearing in $pread will also be on display. Sales will benefit the non-profit magazine.

The March 29 event is also the opening night of the Sex Work Matters conference, a joint venture of CUNY and the New School (www.sexworkmatters.net). For $pread, the evening will also mark the start of its second year of publication. In its first year, $pread won Best New Title from the Utne Indepenent Press Awards. The Spring issue of $pread will be available for sale at the reception.

For opening night only, the exhibit will be completely interactive with a webcam video project, “30 Second Sex,” masterminded by multimedia artist and erotic professional Melissa Gira and featuring webcam pioneers Ana Voog and Echo Transgression camming from remote locations. Computer monitors around the Cyber Center will display the websites of sex worker rights advocacy groups for the public to peruse. Former call girl Tracy Quan along with sex worker activist Carol Leigh (aka Scarlot Harlot) will be signing copies of their respective books, Diary of a Married Call Girl and Unrepentant Whore.

Get a sneak peek of the exhibition at http://sexworkervisions.blogspot.com

WHAT: Sex Worker Visions opening reception

WHERE: LGBT Community Center’s David Bohnett Cyber Center, 208 W. 13 St., NYC

WHEN: 6–9 PM

—

And if you want to know a little more about the babe behind the scenes, Audacia’s brand new interview with Gothamist gets into her thoughts about modelling, sex work, the Sex Worker Visions exhibit, the Perverts’ Saloon, and where the hell this sex-positive activism movement is going. Very cool stuff.

The best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them, this time categorized. Posts are cut at D within each category because I learned the alphabet in Catholic school to keep things fair.

Posts with NSFW pics are in italics. Keep in mind NSFW pic labeling is just for photos/layout images on the specific page linked. Pretty much everything here is NSFW, but you like it like that.

(Administrivia: The categories probably won’t be in the same order every edition. Quick question: for this edition I was pretty conservative about pics in templates; next time, do y’all want bra and panties type stuff tagged as NSFW or not?)

Announcements/Blogging

The Partistes (seska4lovers.com)
Shibaricon: World’s Premiere Annual Pansexual Exhibition 2006 (spiritsex.blogspot.com)
Stat-Aholic (shaysotherspot.blogspot.com)
SugarClick Launched (sugarbank.com)

Experiences

The Dreaded Scottish Cockblock (jundercovers.blogspot.com)
The Four of Us (herknees.org)
Killing an Afternoon (secretsofadirtygirl.blogspot.com)
Losing M (v-boat.blogspot.com)
Mmmmmm, Yummy! (aliferestarted.blogspot.com)
Resistance is Futile (avaadora.blogspot.com)
Underground (domequeen.blogspot.com)

Fantasies

Eagle (barbiebaby09.livejournal.com)
Exhaling (emergingontheotherside.blogspot.com)
Hot Sugar and Wet Silk (tangysweet.blogspot.com)
On the Dock (Fiction) (bikersballsandteacherstits.blogspot.com)
Saturday with Adele (theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
Stormy Night (gentlygently.blogspot.com)
Tandem Massages (alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
25 Words or Less (contains NSFW pics if you scroll down) (realadultsex.com)
Babysitter (drtycplinva.blogspot.com)
More Sugasm…
Join the Sugasm

(Sugasm participants should re-post all the links above. The following links may be excluded as long as you include all the above links.)

Body Language (chaosnoir.blogspot.com)
Can I Play with it Now? (4dirtylaundry.blogspot.com)

Funny

Jane likes to teeter totter. (janeluvsdick.com)
Santorum (radicalvixen.com)
This is what Happens… (damnjezebel.com)
We All Have AIDS (sugarpit.com)
The Cock Interviews: Part Two (secretbrain.blogspot.com)

Fetish & BDSM

A Long Hot Soak and Burning Candles (redvelvetropeburn.blogspot.com)
Interesting Interactions (lifeashis.com)
New Elena Spanking Pics (tirepaddle.com)
On a Power Trip (whatsexmaycome.blogspot.com)
The Perfect Fetish Photo (adelehaze.com)
“The sweetest thing I ever saw, was you asleep and dreaming.” (eternalapprentice.blogsome.com)
Choices – Part Three (masterenigma.blogspot.com)

NSFW Pics

House of Babalon (eroticandy.blogspot.com)
Looking Down (barelace.blogspot.com)
O azul… // The blue one… (camadecasal.blogspot.com)
Wet Panties Wednesday (hornynurse.livejournal.com)
Anal Advocate (sexyukgirl.blogspot.com)
Aurora Snow, Gauge and a Dildo. Pure Magic. (internetisforporn.com)

Sex Advice / Sex Toys / Sexy Reviews

Oh Boys… May I Experiment on You? (sexeteria.blogspot.com)
One Hefty Dose of Butch, Black, Silicone Bliss (suburbansexpot.blogs.com)
Pretty Dumb Things (sugarclick.com)
Sex Toys Must Have (creamonpants.com)
Tips for Going Bare (shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
The Blind Jockey (sin.typepad.com)

Sex Commentary / Sexual Politics

Lara Drops to a C Cup (sugarjoy.com)
Porn You Wish They’d Make (sabrinainstockings.com)
Sex in the News – Blog-a-Thon by Blank Noise Project (seskuality.com)
2257 and Sweet Pink Activist Cunt (fullfrontalpolitics.com)

Remember the Pence Amendment?

The one that was lingering in the House, that involved making lascivious exhibitation of the genital area and simulated sexually explicit conduct – presently exempt – subject to 2257?

The one that, if it became law, would make R-rated movies subject to 18 U.S.C. § 2257 regs… Yeah, that one.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday (also Blog Against Sexism day… more on that in the next post); HR 4472. Title 6 of HR 4472 contains language that was basically adapted from the Pence Amendment and adds to 2257.

Right now you’re thinking, “Oh, joy! Who else is going to have to take down their porn when – not if – this piece of horseshit passes the Senate?”

Why do I say when? Aside from the fact that the language in question is sneakily buried within a bill targeting sex offenders and street gangs (and who can say no to that, with midterm elections coming up and MySpace predators on the evening news every night?), XBiz reports:

The bill was passed under a suspension of House rules, so no debate or discussions were allowed, [industry attorney Jeff] Douglas said, further signaling a possible agenda on the part of lawmakers to rush it through to the Oval Office as quickly as possible.

“According to a House Republican, they have gotten a guarantee that the Senate also will take it up in an expedited fashion, and this suggests they don’t intend to hold any hearings,” Douglas said, adding that there has never been a congressional hearing on 2257 law since it was enacted in 1988.
“House Passes 2257-Related Bill,” XBiz

I haven’t read the language of Title 6 yet, but I’ll try to do it before lunch and post some followup. This not only directly affects me, it directly affects the chances of you seeing my sweet pink activist cunt.

If you haven’t caught the posts and discussions over at SugarBank on porn, obscenity, and the violence/sex split, get your smut-happy ass over there pronto.

If there’s reason to draw a line between violent movies and sex movies, should we be drawing it now? If not is there anything that we shouldn’t allow others to package as entertainment? When violence, fear, implied lack of consent and sex are rolled together how do we counter accusations of fetishizing rape? How comfortable are you with the crying edge of pornography? How comfortable do you think you’ll need to be?

“Could Donkey Punches KO Porn’s First Amendment Protection?,” SugarBank

That post brought up a great discussion about industry standards, sex, and violence in porn which led to this one:

For thirty years Miller has served the porn industry well, but thinking Miller will never succeed in proving any pornography obscene is wishful thinking. A 3 minute downloadable clip on a webpage is easy to ‘take as a whole’ and is increasingly likely to show an apparently distressed women being deliberately hurt by a sexually violent man. The government are confident the public won’t view downloadable clips the same way they did movies like Deep Throat in the seventies. They also know that if one judgment goes against porn it’ll put the industry in the same position as the once unassailable tobacco industry – paying fines and under constant, successful assault (the difference being that pornographers will do serious jailtime.)

“Should Pornographers Challenge the Miller Test?,” SugarBank

(Since this is my blog and not the Sam Sugar echo chamber, I have some more thoughts on that last sentence I’ll post later tonight. Yes! A real post! Feel free to orgasm in your pants. I did.)

What’s Sam’s answer to the Miller test? Canada’s Butler test. Which is a much better solution… unless you’re not straight, or unless you’re into the kinky stuff.

The line between sex and violence and consensual BDSM can be glaringly obvious or obviously blurry depending on where you’re standing. It’s one thing to think you obviously don’t mean BDSM when you say sex and violence, and another to not specifically exclude it and realize that a lot of people do see a person hitting another person with a cane, hearing that sharp swish, the resulting stripes as violence. After all, somebody’s hitting somebody with something and somebody else is getting hurt. They’re into it, yes, but as Sam brings up in comments, there’s also the issue of whether or not a person has a right to consent to getting beaten.

I like to play rough on both sides of the whip. I’m not going to try to argue that BDSM and violence are completely different. The intent is different. The emotions are different. But BDSM is as much about hurting someone until they can’t take anymore and then hearing them beg you for more as it is tying your lover up and torturing them using only your hands and tongue. Butler doesn’t clearly exclude BDSM porn – in fact, in implementation, it’s basically considered to speficically include it as being both violent and socially harmful/degrading to women (even femdom. Yep.).

You’ll have to pry my crop out of my cold, dead hands. If we’re going to draw a firm line between sex and violence we need to know what the hell counts as sex, what counts as violence, and why we’re drawing the line there. A lot of people instinctively squick at the combination, and a lot of people are instinctively turned on by it, so call it unnatural if you like but I live to bite and be bitten, to whip and be whipped. I want that natural sexual expression protected.

Go argue/agree with him in comments. It’s less satisfying than gangland jello-wrestling him but with any luck you won’t get arrested later, either…