Culture

The first pics from Levi's Playgirl pictorial have hit the web.  He looks kind of hot - the best he's looked yet.  You so know that this issue is going to sell like hotcakes.  Who doesn't want to see the penis that knocked up Palin's teenage daughter. 

And Playgirl timed Levi's spread to dovetail with Palin's book release.  That's what happens when you deny someone's paternity rights after parading him around in your unsuccessful bid for the White House.  Levi has been quite vocal about Palin blocking him from seeing his son.  He also made claims that Palin makes fun of her special needs child (I believe it).  Hell hath no fury like a teen dad scorned.  This 19 year old has successfully inserted himself into every interview Palin has had on her book tour....even with Oprah:

The U.S. Constitution grants an absolute right to free speech. Until recently, it was one of the best protected rights in the United States, as ruling after ruling by the Supreme Court determined that sexual speech is protected in a wide diversity of circumstances. The obscenity protections in a famous 1973 decision called Miller vs California. This decision made it nearly impossible to be prosecuted for obscenity. Everyone from Allen Ginsberg to Larry Flynt benefitted from this - and as a result, so did we. Many other forms of speech were protected under this safe umbrella.

Then came the Internet. Restricting sexual speech in a series of incremental rules and regulations, that right is being tightened like a noose.

This week, an Amsterdam style "coffee shop" opened in the US. It's the first of it's kind to test the Obama administration's relaxing of policing medical use of marijuana.

I'm all for it - and I don't even smoke pot. I'm hoping this marks the beginning of us Americans relaxing restrictions on things that help us to feel good.

The reality is that people like drugs. They always have. They always will. But, superstitious thinking has wrestled the naturalness of pleasure away from us.

I'm going to see the movie Amelia tomorrow. Although this news item refers to Amelia's wild side, opting for non monogamy is hardly what I'd consider "wild." She wanted her husband to know that she didn't expect either one of them to adhere to a lifetime of sex restricted to one another. I find that an act of courage in a society that demands monogamy of women while many men get to cheat.

Not only did she lead a conventional life, but it seems that her plane just didn't "disappear". My friends made a film about TIGHAR, a group of researchers digging for truth, something that always turns me on.

Amelia's fourth cousin, Wally Earhart, believes that Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not die as claimed by the government and the Navy when their twin-engine Electra plunged into the Pacific on July 2, 1937.

Penny and I have admired each other's ground breaking art for decades. We agree as sister artists that the best thing in the world a woman can do is to have a BAD Reputation. Carlin and I call our business BAD Media, LLC. And my initials spell BAD. Can't wait to read her book, Bad Reputation.

She was a runaway at thirteen, a reform-school graduate at sixteen, a performer in the legendary New York City Play-House of the Ridiculous at seventeen, and an escapee from Andy Warhol's Factory scene at nineteen. Penny Arcade emerged in the 1980s as a primal force on the New York art scene and an originator of what came to be called performance art.

Laura Roberts' article was sent to me by Steven Otero to support my latest commitment to self publish my sexual memoir. It got me thinking that Nin's sexual diary was nothing like what I'm doing really. Good thing I actually enjoy being ostracized by people who don't like sex. Saves time.  Here's Laura's take on the reality of being a female sex writer:

Female sex writers often get labelled; people think they're promiscuous, flighty, frivolous, that they're porn stars or prostitutes or worse. They're often assumed to be living the impossible life of Carrie Bradshaw, a fictional character who has been the bane of my writing career since its beginning. Sorry to disappoint, but I have never in my life worn a giant vagina, er, flower pin in public. Nor do I intend to.

A Scrabble pin with the letter V, on the other hand... well, that's just nerdy-hot.

Like most figures in the media, I indirectly ignore Carrie Prejean's face on websites and newspaper rags on a somewhat regular basis. I think I heard she was one of those pageant winners who flashed for cash (or for artistic expression, or whatever the cause may be). Now, I discovered that Prejean aims her self-righteous pistols at the media and pornography for her inevitable fall from redemption.

In a "tell-all" book, Prejean bashes pornography and talks straightforwardly about what a few topless pictures has taught her:

"Our bodies are temples of the Lord. We should earn respect and admiration for our hearts, not for showing skin to look sexy... I have since learned that your outer beauty can only get you so far in life." - Carrie Prejean

Before my husband, I mostly met men for relationships and such over the Internet. In fact, I discussed my first explicit encounters in one of my posts. And, I hadn't realized until after I wrote that piece how much of an impact my computer (and most other mobile devices) has had on my sex life!

An article I read the other day addressed my concerns. Social networking sites and personal ads work hand-in-hand, making it so simple to contact a person, get their information, and meet them somewhere for erotic pleasure or otherwise.

After hearing the story of the 4 year old who was beaten to death for "touching himself", I had to respond.  Childhood sexuality is a fact of everyone's life. Like it or not all you sex fearing parents who punish your children for an act that is as natural as eating! Shame on all of you! Even though you believe it is for your child's sake, inhibiting masturbation is the first blow of sexual repression that leaves a permanent scar on every child's ability to enjoy adult sexuality.

I totally mean it.

As a girl on the go, I have very little patience for immaturity. And very little patience for the unimaginative and uninspiring lackeys of this city! I need a man with style... a man with a can-do attitude and a chin that can slice through a tin can. I want a man who swallows martini like water.

I want Duck Phillips.

Not only was she expelled, but she was escorted out heckled by her classmates. Then the university took out newspaper ads challenging her "morality". Shocking.

I never watch Gossip Girl but thought about tivoing an upcoming episode when I saw the famed "threesome" promo.  The Parents Television Council flipped penning a letter to the CW network calling the promo "reckless and irresponsible".  

I liked the promo because it was the first time I've seen a threesome tease involving one woman AND TWO MEN.  "Serena" (Blake Lively) is clearly the woman in the man sandwich but you have no idea who the two men are....that's the point I think.

Britney Spear's new single "3" says absolutely nothing about threesomes. The video gets the juices flowing but it's the same old dance.  The lyrics start off, "1, 2, 3 Not only you and me" which pushes the threesome button but that's as far as it goes.

When did this culture get so obsessed over fake sex and sexual innuendo? How has pop culture "progressed" towards "sexual liberation" by talking subliminally about it?

Now, sure there are plenty of popular resources that do speak frankly and straightforwardly about sexual encounters, but the infinite pool of pop culture that we absorb on a daily basis is scarce when it comes to informational and entertaining thoughts and ideas about sexuality.