Literate Perversions

I dropped the ball. I skipped not one, but two of these things. A lot of perverted news slipped by, mostly because I’ve been actually employed for the last couple of weeks, and because I’ve been helping Elizabeth Wood out with a sooper seekrit project. But better late than never, and here’s my take on the latest on sex in the news.

Cambridge Votes in First Transgender Mayor (Managing Diversity): Does anyone remember the phrase, copped from the title of a popular play, “No sex please, we’re British”? When did we become the repressed assholes who go into a frenzy over 1.5 seconds of nipple flash while they can elect to the Mayorship of a staid, respected university town a woman who is not only an MTF transsexual, but is partnered to a transsexual woman who is also a former member of the City Council? In the United States, these women would be wearing bulletproof vests and get picketed by every Jesus freak in their time zone.

Lawyer: ‘Rape’ girl should be ‘glad of attention’ (Metro.co.uk, via Feministe): There’s so many layers of misogyny in this one that it makes my head hurt just tryingto parse them all. Sheilagh Davies, the barrister defending one of three boys who are accused of raping two girls in a London park, managed to combine slut-shaming, fat-phobia, and plain old hatred of women by claiming that one of the girls was so fat she would have been happy of the attention from the boys, and that she had slimmed down as a result. (Presumably because her self-esteem has been lifted by the rape, rather than suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.)

Amanda Marcotte Reviews Lost Girls (Pandagon): Lost Girls is a shamelessly pornographic comic by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie that features three characters from Victorian literature: Alice, from Alice in Wonderland; Dorothy Gale, of The Wizard of Oz; and Wendy Darling, of Peter Pan. I think it’s one of the best fucking pieces of comic art or pornography that I’ve seen for a long time. Knowing Amanda Marcotte’s views on pornography, when I saw that she had done a review for Pandagon, I was concerned that she’d just rip it to shreds. Instead, she has a real appreciation for the work’s complexity, and calls it a “clear-cut assault… on the horrible and degradging myth that posits that sex abuse victims should shut themselves off sexually forevermore.” Bonus Link: Pictures of Moore and Gebbie’s recent wedding, courtesy of Neil Gaiman. These are two people who can not only write and draw, but know how to dress.

The Birth Control of Yesteryear (Damn Interesting): Sex didn’t start with the first issue of Playboy in 1953, and birth control didn’t start with the invention of the Pill in 1960. This entry discusses the use of a plant called silphium by the ancient Greeks as a contraceptive.

Divorced Parents Clash Over 12-Year-Old Son’s Circumcision (The Oregonian):

Bigfoot Porn (Cryptomundo, via Boing Boing): I’ve posted cockroach smut and a clip of a woman having a three-way with pterodactyls on this site, and this still makes me go “huh?!?” When I think hot, steamy sex, I don’t generally think “Bigfoot!” Apparently there’s a fifteen-minute porn film that was made in the seventies called The Geek, in which two guys and a woman go tromping out into the wilderness, only to encounter Bigfoot. Bigfoot rapes the woman. She fights at first, then finds that she likes having Sasquatch cock forced into her. I suppose if you’re looking for a film that combines cryptozoology, bestiality, and misogyny, this would be your thing. The truly bizarre thing about this particular blog entry, though, is that the first reaction of the author, when faced with a film this lame and misbegotten, is to get miffed because it doesn’t represent a serious look at the sexuality of Sasquatchs. I should hope not, or we’re gonna have to lock up the wimmenfolk. More info at Brains on Film and Surfindead.com, including stills.

Peter Bagge Condoms (Condomania, via Boing Boing): In his misanthropic and deeply funny comic book Hate, Peter Bagge created a nightmarish vision of suburbia that made the Simpson clan look like the latter-day Ozzie and Harriet. While the protagonist, Buddy Bradley, might be said to embody a lot of traits, an awareness of safer sex techniques wouldn’t be one of them. And yet, lo and behold, Condomania is now giving you the opportunity to be the coolest slut on the block when you reach into your nightstand and pull out a condom with Buddy on the wrapper. It seems like a weird juxtaposition at first, but on reflection, it makes sense: for het couples, you can look into Buddy’s face and realize that you’ll be raising him for the next 18 years if you get some spare jism in the wrong place. (I for one would rush out to Vic’s 24-hour Vasectomy Shack without hesitation once I got that thought in my brain.) If you’re homo, it’s just one more reason to thank god you’re not having breeder sex. Whatever it inspires, it’s gotta be one of the coolest rubbers out there.

Expand Your Chest With the Psycho-Expander (Modernmechanix, via Boing Boing): Before silicone implants, apparently, there was this. It wasn’t designed for anything as crass as making women’s boobs bigger, of course. The function of the “Psycho-Expander” is to “Double Your Breathing Capacity” and to give you “Great Lung Power.” And those “personal massagers” you used to see advertised? Strictly to relieve aches and pains in your neck and back. Really.

Kansas Board of Ed. Erases Conservative Sex Ed Policies (CNN): Another one down. As people see that abstinence-only policies are about as useful as claiming that you believe in fairies to save Tinkerbell, expect to see more of these.

100 Divas (Lolita Wolf): Are you a sex diva? If you are, bend over. Lolita Wolf has set herself the goal of spanking one hundred divas. She’s already built up a respectable list that so far includes Fetish Diva Midori, Dossie Easton, and Tristan Taromino, but since any honest accounting of sex divas on the East Coast includes Lolita, she’s gonna have to get around to spanking her own ass sooner or later.

Oral Sex Linked to Throat Cancer (Washington Post): This one’s been haunting me since I first read it. Frankly, I’m trying not to let it get to me, because these are very new statistics and the MSM tends to hype up any connection between sex and disease that they can find. But still, it’s one more thing that makes me very, very happy that we now have a vaccine for HPV. I’ve never been tested for that particular beastie, and given its prevalence, there’s good odds that it’s lurking around someplace in my bloodstream, in which case there’s no point in a vaccine for me personally, but I’ll be delighted to know that future generations can get down to shameless pussy-eating and cocksucking with one less thing to worry about.

Gay Sailor Hired, Fired, Rehired, Refired (Various): In Joseph Heller’s classic novel, Catch-22, the title refers to the policy that an insane pilot cannot be allowed to be fly missions. However, a pilot must request to be taken off flight duty, which indicates a concern for personal safety, and therefore demonstrates sanity. Therefore, you can’t be taken off flight duty unless you ask to be, and if you ask, you’re sane, so you can’t be removed from flight duty. I think Heller and his protagonist, Yossarian, would have appreciated the ornate beauty of the military’s policy against homosexuality. Case in point: here we have a guy, Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight, who had served for four years in the Navy as a Hebrew translator. Then, after having his heterosexual marriage annulled because he was actually gay, he came out to his officers, thinking they would understand and see him as a good officer nevertheless. Oops. No. Knight wound up getting kicked right out of the Navy under the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Then, a year later, the Navy had a change of heart (or got really desperate for cannon fodder, or suffered a clerical error, depending on who you believe) and recalled Knight by sending him a letter giving him 30 days to report for duty. So Petty Officer Second Class Knight showed up like a good soldier, and wound up serving in Kuwait within two weeks. But like a bad faggot, when General Peter Pace made his now-famous remark that “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Knight did the unthinkable: he wrote a letter. To Stars and Stripes, of all things. And they published it. So now the good soldier/bad faggot is out again. Does your brain hurt yet? Mine does. You’re allowed to be pretty much anything in the armed forces these days — a white supremacist, a violent convict, barely able to stand on two legs — as long as you don’t wanna screw someone of the same gender. But in the world’s eyes, we’re still a symbol of freedom, justice, and tolerance. Articles about Jason Knight: Stars and Stripes, Windy City Times, Service Members Legal Defense Network, Pandagon, Pam’s House Blend

81 Words (This American Life, via Fetish Diva Midori): Sometimes it’s just so, so easy to forget how far gay and lesbian rights have come in the last few decades. Nowadays, we get hugely passionate in debates over whether two people of the same sex should be able to get married. But in the early seventies, when I was just getting the hang of walking and pooping, gay people’s big struggles included the battle not to be locked up in madhouses and “treated” with electrical shocks and drugs because of who they fell in love with. This entire episode of This American Life is dedicated to the struggle of a few committed activists to get homosexuality removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official manual of the American Psychiatric Association that determines what’s officially “crazy” and what’s not.

Report perverted news for the next round.