Lifestyle

This piece by David Steinberg on the truth about kink.com reminded my of my investigation into the world of BDSM back in the eighties.  It taught me about the conscious exchange of power between couples who embraced the roles of top and bottom. Until that decade, my feminist ideal was love and sex between equals. In my support group of lesbian and bisexual women, I discovered there really was no such thing as equals. The closest I got was taking turns to decide who was running the show.

Most people today still hold the unsophisticated view that BDSM is a form torture! Not true. Torture is closer to romantic love or being married without any clear stated boundaries or agreements. I know because I've done both:

If you were to take seriously Matt Smith's inflammatory SF Weekly article on kink.com ("Whipped and Gagged -- Is Government Spending Obscene?"), you would think that all sorts of nefarious things are going on at the huge old armory at 14th and Mission that is kink.com's home. 

I'm moving to Scandanavia: A park near Amsterdam has unveiled information signs pointing out spots where officials say gay men are known to have sex, so visitors are not taken by surprise.

The signs "clearly indicate what is happening in each zone; also those where gay men are known to practice 'cruising'," municipal spokeswoman Manon Koffijberg said.

Cruising is a slang word used to describe the act of trawling for casual sex. "If you don't want to be confronted by a vision of that sort, the signs allow you to avoid specific areas," Ms Koffijberg said.

The De Oeverlanden park in Slotervaart, south-west of Amsterdam, is known as a place where homosexuals from all over the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe go in search of sex partners.

Ms Koffijberg said that while having sex in public was against the law, the park has been used for this purpose for so long that it has become "gedoog", a Dutch word for tolerating unwanted behaviour.

Carol and Robert who created the Center for Sex and Culture (CSC ) in San Francisco are the folks behind the Masturbate-a-Thon on May 2. I also consider them to be among my closet and bestest Darling friends.

While I'm all for self-pleasuring, jacking off, spanking the monkey, self-loving, or whatever else you want to call it, I have never attended a Masturbate-a-Thon. Yes, I've been invited numerous times but I have reservations about turning my favorite kind of sex into a competive sport. So fuck me and the horse I rode in on in. Everyone in the SF area is invited and I'll let you know all about it when it's over. Horray, Horray for the month of May. The Masturbate-a-Thon begins on the second day!

Dossie and I met back in the early seventies when I was bicoastal living in San Francisco part time. Our commune on Castro Steet rotated betweeen four to five people who were committed singles. As long as we lived together we agreed to avoid sexually pairing off. Dossie came to a few our communal sex parties. I remember her as a beautiful tiny faun with a mop of curly hair who loved sex. l'm glad to see her book coming out again. The information is pertenent for everyone who realizes that the limitations of monogamy doesn't work for everyone.

An underground hit for years in sexually experimental circles, Dossie Easton's and Janet W. Hardy's The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Adventures makes the case that we should all enjoy an occasional threesome, foursome, and moresome with friends and strangers. "We believe it's OK to have sex with anybody you love," Easton and Hardy write, "and we believe in loving everybody."

"Many people find their partner advertising unbeknownst to them; people set up anonymous dates and it turns out to be their spouse who answered the ad."

I'm moving to the Amazon: no marriage, no divorce, no funerals just sexual freedom, fun, and music.  Sold!

Missionaries have been preaching to the Pirahãs for 200 years and have converted not one. Everett did not know this when he first visited them in 1977 at age 26. A missionary and a linguist, he was sent to learn their language, translate the Bible for them, and ultimately bring them to Christ.

Instead, they brought him to atheism. "The Pirahãs have shown me that there is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life and death without the comfort of heaven or the fear of hell and in sailing toward the great abyss with a smile."

Not that they have escaped religion entirely. Spirits live everywhere and may even caution or lecture them at times. But these spirits are visible to the Pirahãs, if not to Everett and his family, who spent 30 years, on and off, living with the tribe.

But they don't have marriage or funeral ceremonies. Cohabitation suffices as the wedding announcement and divorce is accomplished just as simply, though there may be more noise involved. Sexual mores are governed by common sense rather than stricture, which means that single people have sex at will while married people are more circumspect.

If you have some time, it's worth making a trip to google images and video to experience more of this amazing woman. 

She's been named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World. She graduated from Georgetown University in 1998 with a dual degree in history and diplomacy. As a model, she has walked runways in London and Paris. An aspiring actress, she has performed on both television and in movies.

But then, Mullins isn't some shallow slashie mactress. First she was a world-class athlete, having run track at Georgetown and holding records in sprints and the long jump. In January she was voted President of the Women's Sports Foundation by the likes of Danica Patrick and Maria Sharapova. Her accomplishments are each impressive enough on their own, but when you take into account that she's done it all on silicone and titanium legs, she's just making the rest of us look bad.

Every morning when I first get up, I immediately go to the computer and bring up our website. Each time, I'm utterly amazed at the speed and ease of the internet. Thanks to Ted Nelson, the brilliant creator of this medium, I am instantly in touch with the whole wide world. Maybe it's my age, but I never cease to marvel at the potential of this kind of communication.

Today, I accidentally ended up on a page that had viewer responses to my article on male circumcision. As I reread them, I again realized how many thoughtful people had shared their ideas and feelings on the subject, including a few men who called me out on some of my statements. And get this, I agree with what many of my critics said. Yes, I made some brash statements with no data to back them up but I wrote that essay after I'd just watched the video clip showing a baby being circumcised. It actually sickened me as I observed this infants suffering while two adult males, one a doctor and the other his father, simply stood by and allowed this to happen to a helpless baby that was put into restraints. Still in an emotional state, I typed out my response to this unnecessary procedure.

At last, I've found the perfect work out class where I can put in the least amount of time and get the best results: Physique 57.  Betty will totally want me to take this post down but I think that it should remain under the "staying sexual" argument.

If you want to have great sex your entire life, then you have to exercise.  I can't imagine sex without my back muscles.    Physique 57 is designed to lengthen your muscles for a leaner look and, let's face it, when you're toned your sexual energy is right there.  Kelly Ripa is a huge fan of Physique 57 and I'm a total convert.  If you're in nyc, it's a must.

I wish we had some video of her Holy Dance :(

Anna Nobili is no ordinary nun. The 38-year-old used to be a lap-dancer, and spent many years working in Italian nightclubs.

She is now using her talents in a rather different way - for what she calls "The Holy Dance" in a performance on Tuesday evening at the Holy Cross in Jerusalem Basilica in Rome, in front of senior Catholic clerics including Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Vatican's Cultural Department.

Miss Nobili told the BBC World Service that the transformation from podium lap dancer to nun happened gradually. "It was my mother who went about getting me involved in the faith - she had a powerful vision of Jesus," she says.

I first met Jim Haynes in the offices of Grove Press owned by Barney Rosset who broke through US censorship barries and brought us Lady Chatterley's Lover. Barney also published a radical chic magazine called Evergreen. The afternoon Jim and I met, I invited Jim to join me and a few friends for some friendly sex at my place that evening. We made love not war! Jim recipracated by inviting me to be a judge at the second Wet Dream Film Fesitval in Amsterdam and natually, I accepted. A year later Evergreen Magazine published an interview with me titled "The Fine Art of Lovemaking that included twenty images of my erotic art. Many people today still have a copy of that issue published back in February 1971.

It's been ages since I've seen Jim, so I can't wait to see his documentary. Hey! Where is my documentary? Could it be that my story is still too hot to handle? A guy can love sex but not a woman? Oh, I forgot. It's okay if she is a porn star, a prostitute, a pole dancer or a madam. But not if she's enjoying sex just for the fun and pleasure it provides.

A big thank you to the ladies of feministing for introducing me to Exhale an amazing organization that has created an after-abortion counseling talkline.  It's free, confidential, and available 24/7. 

This post is a double hitter. Becky Chalker, a good friend and author of the book "The Clitoral Truth" and the National Women's Health Network, a group of women who lobby in Washington for women's health. I've been involved with the NWHN for many years and suggest you consider joining us. They are a source of information about all things dealing with women's health. And Becky's book tells all you ever wanted to know about our powerhouse of a sex organ, the clitoris. Enjoy!

Strategies for Staying Sexual After Menopause by Becky Chalker

When was the last time you heard a joke suggesting that sex invariably goes ever downhill or totally crashes after menopause? Like yesterday? This concept was boldly reaffirmed - without reference to reliable research - at a conference on menopause held by the National Institutes of Health in 2005! So, if you ask your doctor about sex after menopause, she or he will likely agree that the outlook is gloomy. On the flip side, the golden-years myth is heavily promoted by TV ads for erection drugs, which portray the "Cialis woman" always blissfully ready for intercourse whenever her partner drops a pill.

American Swing has hit theaters and the emails are pouring in about Betty's remarkable performance.  It's a documentary on Plato's Retreat - the sex club that made Studio 54 look like Wonder Bread.  It was produced by Magnolia Pictures which is my favorite studio and is playing at the Quad theatre in nyc so get your tickets now. Betty and I are going Tuesday.

The Rise and Fall of Plato's Retreat by Kurt Loder

By the mid-1970s, the hippie "free love" notions of the '60s had seeped out into the suburbs. Suddenly there were "swingers": men in the most alarming period finery - disco chains, gull-wing collars, crotch-strangling bell-bottom trousers - and the women who loved them (who loved many of them, in fact, sometimes all at once). These people would gather on weekends to form flesh piles at one another's homes. They had their own rites and recognition signals, their own publications. Finally, one of these plebian hedonists, a burly New York meat wholesaler named Larry Levenson, decided the time had come to take swinging public. Well, heterosexual swinging, that is - the gay bathhouse scene was already in full rut. So in 1977 Levenson rented a hotel basement on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that had once housed a famous gay pleasure dome called the Continental Baths (where Bette Midler launched her career, backed by Barry Manilow in a bath towel), and turned it into Plato's Retreat, America's first straight public sex club. For better and then, later, for worse, things would never be the same again.