Sexual Identity/Orientation

According to new research, children raised by lesbians are more aspirational than those with opposite-sex parents.  The suggestion is that same-sex couples make better parents because children cannot be conceived accidentally - parents must make an active decision to adopt or find a sperm donor.  

I say beware of research conclusions that favor one gendered group over another. There exists too much within and between group variability to help us really understand human experience. This holds true regarding comparisons between gay/lesbian parenting and heterosexual parenting.

I met Jincey Lumpkin at a special event at Kiki De Montparnasse. We met for lunch @ Park and she told me about the lesbian porn she was producing and now it's here. It's the best butch/femme lesbian sex-in-the-back-of-the-cab ever:

TAXI trailer from jincey lumpkin on Vimeo.

In the Illusion of Sex, two faces are perceived as male and female. However, both faces are actually versions of the same androgynous face. One face was created by increasing the contrast of the androgynous face, while the other face was created by decreasing the contrast. The face with more contrast is perceived as female, while the face with less contrast is perceived as male. The Illusion of Sex demonstrates that contrast is an important cue for perceiving the sex of a face, with greater contrast appearing feminine, and lesser contrast appearing masculine.

Russell, R. (2009) A sex difference in facial pigmentation and its exaggeration by cosmetics. Perception, (38)1211-1219. Third place winner of the 6th Annual Illusion of the Year Contest.

I'm so hoping that Obama is going to end Don't Ask Don't Tell because the numbers are in and women are disproportionately dismissed under this idiotic policy.  Women make up just 14% of the military yet they account for 36% of dismissals under Don't Ask Don't Tell.  And it turns out that most were dismissed from the Air Force.  Seems Top Gun women aren't interested in Tom Cruise.

Now to the why (because I have to go there).  My knee jerk reaction as a woman who chose a male-dominated profession is that these women are under the microscope.

And we thought Sex for One received the most ban requests at Libraries.  As it turns out, And Tango Makes Three - based on a true story and centring on gay penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo - has had the most ban requests.

The book's authors are Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell.

Reasons given by organisations and individuals for their requests to get it removed from public shelves, include "anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group".

Even gay animals freak out parents.  You'd think they'd be able to keep it on the shelves as a documentary. 

Can we please put marriage discrimination to bed and sign the petition to urge Congress to pass the Respect for Marriage Act silencing those rabid right wing nut cases once and for all? The reason they are successful is too many reasonable liberals are enjoying life and don't get involved in politics. I know because that's how I lived the better part of my life.

Please sign the online petition to urge Congress to pass the Respect for Marriage Act.

What about an ice cream flavor for gay women....like double couchie crunch?

One of Ben and Jerry's most popular ice creams 'Chubby Hubby' will be sold under the new name 'Hubby Hubby' for the month of September to celebrate gay marriage in the company's home state of Vermont.

Ben and Jerry's Ice cream thinks the state of Vermont's decision to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples which came into effect Tuesday is a good reason to celebrate.

Ben & Jerry's aims to raise awareness of what it calls the "importance of marriage equality." And to show support for the legislation they will serve "Hubby Hubby" sundaes in Vermont Scoop Shops throughout the month of September.

On The Issues Magazine's piece on society's strict definition of male and female got me thinking about my own struggle dealing with gender identity.  When I was living in SF on Castro Street in the early seventies, I first encountered the concept of androgyny. Not the idea of being both male and female; hermaphroditic, but a person with both masculine and feminine characteristics in terms of behaviour.

I embraced the idea of dressing more in masculine attire and shaved my head. I was often treated like a "little guy." I learned a lot about what we then called "sex roles" that are based upon social constructs. Sex roles became gender, a word I still don't like as well as sex roles. I talk about this in my memoir so stay tuned.

In honor of tomorrow's release of "Threesomes & Moresomes" from Betty's memoir, we're posting below Adele Stan's piece "Why Are people Afraid of Bisexuals?":

I don't like the term bisexual; I prefer to think of myself as a person of no fixed sexual orientation. It better suits the amorphous world I inhabit.

"How do you identify?"

"Oh, I'm a PoNFSO."

Okay; it's a little unwieldy, and abbreviated, it hardly rolls off the tongue. So, neither fish nor fowl, I content myself with being the bacon in the LGBT sandwich.

I didn't come of age as a free-spirited bisexual. I always knew it was what I was, at least from the point at which I knew what the term meant. As a child, I had crushes on both boys and girls. When my best friend in high school lost her virginity, I was beside myself. But how was I to tell her I was in love with her -- especially after I had spent the previous year utterly smitten with a boy?

It's like the L Word vs. Queer as Folk with the ladies opting for relationships and the men opting for casual sex:

More female than male same-sex couples have chosen to marry since Swedish homosexuals were granted the legal right to marry on May 1st, 2009.  Thirty-seven female couples have tied the knot since May, compared to 11 male couples, according to figures from Statistics Sweden (SCB).

In addition, the number of children of same-sex couples registered as under Sweden's domestic partnership law has increased tenfold over the last decade.

Keep watching...the reveal is 5 half-naked football players with rainbow colored underwear over their faces.  Got me so hot!

Who isn't "gay" in prison?

Virginia's largest women's prison rounded up inmates who had loose-fitting clothes, short hair or otherwise masculine looks and placed them in a separate cell block.

That's according to prisoners and corrections officers who talked to The Associated Press about the practice.

They say dozens were moved in an attempt to split up relationships and curb illegal sexual activity at the 1,200-inmate Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy. Some straight women were sent to the wing strictly because of their appearance.

Civil rights advocates called the moves unconstitutional punishment for "looking gay."

This is such a heartwarming story.  My favorite statement: "Sex and coupling up in our world do not necessarily have anything to do with reproduction":

Two "gay" male penguins have hatched a chick and are now rearing it as its adoptive parents, says a German zoo. The zoo, in Bremerhaven, northern Germany, says the adult males - Z and Vielpunkt - were given an egg which was rejected by its biological parents.

It says the couple are now happily rearing the chick, said to have reached four weeks old. The zoo made headlines in 2005 over plans to "test" the sexual orientation of penguins with homosexual traits.