It seems like there’s a lot of collaring going around these days. It must be spring. The grass is green, the air is crisp, and mornings of miserable rain alternate with sunlit, clear-skied, mildly breezy afternoons. In such promising March weather, a kinkster’s thoughts can’t help but lightly turn to locking a symbol of commitment around the neck of some best beloved.
My lover and I have been invited to two collaring ceremonies so far and have heard rumors of more to come. As we congratulate our friends we can’t help but smile, remembering our own fit of spring fever almost a year ago when we collared each other, an impulsive move that has worked out pretty well for us so far. [Read more]
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There's been another go-round in the debate over whether there's really a G-spot. Frankly, it's hard for me not to just say, “Who cares what scientists think? What will it change for them to scientifically prove there's a G-spot anyway?” The answer, of course, is that all those scientists might start having more fun in bed. (And their lovers, too.) The more pleasure there is in the world, the better. [Read more]
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First of all, that Galway incident supposedly invoking an 1837 Unlawful Accommodation of Donkeys Act is apparently a hoax. However, I have seen, with my own eyes, photographic evidence of BDSM garden gnomes. Second, Kinky Devil, “Ireland’s largest adult shop,” emphatically does not sell Leprechaun-shaped vibrators, shamrock pasties or anything that might be associated with St. Patrick’s Day. In Ireland, St. Patrick is still a significant religious figure and his saint's day is not an entirely secular celebration devoted to parades and beer, the way we think of it here in the United States. In fact, one of the highlights of Saturday’s San Francisco parade was a man in a green vest riding a motorized bar stool. [Read more]
It's a tried-and-true truism that many of the folks who most loudly condemn the ostensible sins of others are really struggling against something in themselves. Repression leads to oppression. That goes for institutions, too: though it gleefully throws its theological weight around, the Roman Catholic hierarchy has, over the millennia, itself wallowed more than a bit in dubious worldly pleasures. And when it comes to public revelations of pubic transgressions, the Church of Rome has not, let's face it, had a good few last years.
But a swelling flood of sexual abuse cases hasn't stopped Pope Benedict and his band of merry men from crusading against queers. Seems that the more guys who come forth with tales of being diddled by priests when they were kids, the harder the Vatican comes down on consenting-adults homos, be it the Church spearheading the fight against same-sex marriage or His Holiness blaming queer rights for global warming. [Read more]
I’m teaching this week in Buenos Aries, Argentina. [Read more]
This week's column is an opinion piece. It's about Men in Skirts. My opinion is, men should wear skirts.
Not just in the goth club, not just at Burning Man, not just kilts. Men should wear skirts lots more than they do. Why? Because it looks good, and I like it.
And why don't men wear skirts? Why is it so hard for me to get my boyfriends to wear skirts for everyday wear? There's a huge advantage to wearing skirts, guys—most girls love it. It's instant panty-remover, just like wearing eyeliner. If you wear a skirt girls will totally hit on you. Isn't that a powerful incentive? [Read more]
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“Have you seen the Dockers ads?” someone asked me recently at a conference, after I told them I write about masculinity. "A friend told me he liked those ads, because he is so unsure of what it means to 'be a man' right now. Everything has changed. There are no icons pointing men where to go, what to be like." [Read more]
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We hear an awful lot about “cougars” these days: rapacious older women sucking the sexual marrow from hapless young men. And of course the older man/younger woman “thang” provides reliable fodder for pop culture ruminants. Elsewhere we have the happy, hairy world of gay daddy bears and their cubs. And in the adult marketplace there is a pornographic niche dedicated to “moms vs. girls” and “dirty older soccer moms” who seduce younger women. We like to think we know what’s in it for the older partners in these cases: the younger (adult) partner is always more desirable, right?
But how often do we consider these issues from the younger partners' views?
Chronophilia is a word for “sexual arousal within age patterns” and covers everything from sexual love of minors to sexual love of elders. Gerontophilia means “sex attraction toward old persons” (thank you, Merriam-Webster), but is commonly thought of as a fetish. In criminology and certain kinds of journalism, gerontophilia is also the explanation given for brutal rapes of older or elderly women. Alphamegamia is a marriage of an older man with a younger woman or, like gerontophilia, can simply mean sexual attraction between people who are far apart in age. Anililagnia means an attraction to older or elderly women.
Issues surrounding disparate ages and sex are extraordinarily charged, even if all involved parties have reached the age of legal consent. Adult lovers of disparate ages invariably conjure scenarios involving lust, predation, exploitation, and/or Oedipal complexes, none of which are necessarily the case. (Please note, “lust and predation” can be hot elements in a consensual relationship, a fact lost on those who feel called upon to comment or blog.) We feel completely justified in scrutinizing and questioning the motivations of people involved in “May/December” relationships, inevitably pathologizing them. For the younger adult, the motivation must be money or security or an Oedipal element. For the older, we assume the motivation is an unseemly lust for younger flesh, the result of a mid-life crisis, or a blatant disregard of social standards. And so on. That two adults, no matter how far apart in age, may simply find each other attractive and desirable just does not seem to collectively compute. [Read more]
From the privacy of her dungeon or office, Cleo Dubois offers consultations to a wide range of individuals and couples of all genders and sexual orientations. She provides a gentle initiation to kink for the curious and inexperienced as well as guided play for adventurous, experienced couples. Through her Academy of SM Arts, Cleo and her colleagues Eve Minax and Selina Raven train Dominant Men and Women and those who Switch in the art of Erotic Energy/Power Exchange during weekend intensives held at the Citadel in San Francisco. Upcoming events include the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensive for Women: Tops & Switches May 1-2 and the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensive for Men: Tops & Switches September 11-12. From Flogging Salons at Femina Potens to a "Spirit + Flesh" Hook-Pull RItuals with her partner Fakir, you will find this Grande Dame intense, fiery, and dedicated to living life to its fullest!
Meet Cleo online at www.sm-arts.com, where you can enjoy some hot clips from her films, the award-winning The Pain Game and Tie Me Up, which are also available for purchase together as The SM Collection. In this exclusive interview with Eve Minax for CarnalNation, Cleo discusses the history and diverse range of her personal and professional experiences.Better Than I Ever Expected:
Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty
By Joan Price
Seal Press
$11.00, 267 pages
I’ve never been one to plan ahead, especially when it entails something I find distasteful. I could easily classify aging as one of those things I haven’t planned ahead for and that I find distasteful. It is, however, fairly inevitable and most definitely better than the alternative. So the question becomes, how to age gracefully? And if you’re someone who finds sex to be an integral part of a happy existence, how can you continue to enjoy a satisfying sex life as the years accumulate? [Read more]- Tweet
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Each year, Sexual Intelligence Awards™ honor individuals and organizations which challenge the sexual fear, unrealistic expectations, and government hypocrisy that undermine love, sex, and
The Private Collection 1970-1979
Edited by Dian Hanson
Taschen
$39.99Dian Hanson has my dream job. Slowly, methodically, she is archiving the history of printed pornographic images before every human who has ever held their junk in one hand and an actual paper and ink object in the other has wanked themselves off this mortal coil. For a century where everyone under 30 associates porn with a website more than a book or magazine, Hanson is the ultimate fetish librarian, in an impeccably white blouse and strict spectacles. She rubs her perfect gams together under her desk, lording over a British-Museum-scale library of the world’s smut, our collected history of arousal in print.
Hanson is the official Sexy Editor for Taschen, and with Private she’s done it again. She reprints material originally intended to arouse a reader/spectator, and in many cases—certainly that of Private, as we will see—the artist and publishers themselves. Reformatting with an ingenuity usually attributed to the creators of Nirvana and "Star Wars" boxed sets, she preserves the ephemeral medium of pornography with gorgeous permanence. Regardless of their content and subject matter, these editions are enough to make any book collector cream their panties. [Read more]
Good morning, class. Today’s column is a lesson in vocabulary. I’ll be talking about my favorite prefix in the world, a short, sweet, sexy little combination of three letters: “cis.” Pronounced like the “sis” in “sister,” it comes from Latin. And if you don’t know what the heck it means, there’s a good chance that it applies to you.
Now pay close attention, because there will be a test.
“Cis” means “on the same side,” and is an antonym to “trans,” which means “across.” See where I’m going with this? If one who has crossed some invisible, socially-constructed sex or gender line is said to be transsexual or transgender, someone who has not, who has remained on their assigned “side” of the spectrum, could be described as cissexual or cisgender.
In other words, “cis” means “not trans.” That’s it. [Read more]
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As spring nears and Easter closes in on us, our minds happily turn to things rising from the dead. And thus to Zombies—as Zombies are such a vernal motif for so many of us.
In the spirit of preparedness, let's explore the joys and hazards of sexual adventures with a zombie partner. Unless the alien harvester invasion, massive meteor collision, or Al Gore's environmental apocalypse happens sooner than expected, we can anticipate a zombie outbreak eventually. [Read more]
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During my research into all the gods and goddesses you could choose for your own love deity, many wonderful “mythical” people popped up. It would be rude not to introduce them to you. Maybe you want a friend on your altar that is easier for you to identify with than a single straight white man. A god in one civilization is a myth in a different time and place. In their day, these folks were just as popular and just as “real” as Yahweh, Allah, and Jesus are today. And some of them were just as likely to take offense.
The fact that we call Hera, Zeus, and Aphrodite “mythological” shows how well the early Christian church succeeded at ousting its predecessors. It certainly helped that none of those previous “pagan” religions claimed that there was only one deity. There was always room for another. As we know, that inclusiveness didn't work both ways, and that's why Christian saints are included in our list of deities. Because, well, a bunch of them used to be full-fledged deities in a different religion. [Read more]
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Your most powerful orgasm in your entire life? Your body remembers it. So does your subconscious. In a trance state, your subconscious can be given the suggestion to relive those powerful feelings, so you can experience them again...and again... Now imagine the hypnotist intensifying your sensations with a “trigger”: one word that commands your pleasure to double, triple or even explode ten times or more than the original intensity, sending wave upon wave of excitement coursing through your body. And all without a single touch.
This form of erotic hypnosis incorporates a technique of “regression,” which takes the hypnotic subject back to a special time or experience. According to one hypnotist’s online discussion, it doesn’t matter who you were originally with, or what caused that powerful orgasm; all you have to do is focus on the sensations. And all the erotic hypnotist has to do is keep you riding the “pulsating waves” in the trance state, comfortably and safely.
Last week I attempted to describe the difference between erotic hypnosis and hypnotherapy used in the context of sex therapy or sexological counseling. It’s worth restating the distinctions, particularly as we get into some ethical considerations later. [Read more]
Imagine that you are someone with a disability and the energy reserves you have each day are represented by the spoons in your kitchen drawer. Getting up, for example, requires a spoon. Showering takes a spoon–rinsing off, that is; doing a full shampoo and conditioning would take two spoons. Getting to work takes another two spoons, what with the walking up and down stairs (particularly in San Francisco) and negotiating public transport (and your fellow passengers). Later, your colleagues may ask if you want to have lunch with them at a restaurant a few blocks away. Do you join them, enjoying the camaraderie and networking but using up another two or three spoons with the walking, or do you take your lunch in the staff room, missing out on the socializing but saving your energy resources for later in the day?
The journey home takes up another spoon or two, so by the time you arrive and eat dinner (which you may have made), you have very few spoons left. Then comes the question, what do you do with your evening? Do you spend a few hours with your partner, talking, cuddling and watching TV (and in doing so use up the last of your spoons), or do you go to bed early, in an attempt to store up some energy for later in the week? [Read more]
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And the hunky little naked golden dude with the oh-so-phallic sword goes to….
First Tom Hanks, then Heath Ledger's nomination, Sean Penn's win, and now Colin Firth is nominated for A Single Man. Apparently the Oscar folks simply love straight guys playing homos… just as long as said sodomites suffer a lot, maybe even die a grisly death.
Back in the bad old days, any queer film character faced at least disgrace, and probably death, by the final reel. Hollywood's Hays Code for decades forbade even a whiff of "sexual perversion" to go unpunished, Supposed sin led to suffering. The End. [Read more]
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Let’s talk about Steampunk.
Or Neo-Victorians. Or Post-Apocalyptic Dandies. Or Neo-Edwardian FuturePast RetroFashion.
Is it over? Are you tired of looking at girls in bustle skirts and boys in striped trousers and waistcoats? I’m not. I never will be. I might be sick of gears though. At the Edwardian Ball I spoke to a couple visiting from DC. The lady informed me, “On the East Coast Steampunk is totally over, but here it seems to be going strong.” [Read more]
Hand me a big pocket watch on a chain, and let me do my stuff! Swinging it back and forth in front of your eyes, you are focused on the movement of the watch. Your breathing slows... Your eyelids droop... You are getting... no, not sleepy... (though you are relaxed, very relaxed... yes, deeper down, yes... relax... just want it and you can have it... deeper, yes... you’re doing great... take it and it’s yours... deeper down... relax, relax... yes...) ...not sleepy, but sexy! Yes! You are getting sexy!
I’m kidding about the pocket watch—I don’t use one—but not about my use of hypnosis. Since combining clinical sexology with hypnotherapy, I’ve worked with clients who have wanted to use hypnosis to address problems like shame, erectile dysfunction, sexual trauma, “performance anxiety,” and low desire. And I am always astounded by the imagery and scenarios—so rich, so varied—that burble up from each client’s subconscious during trance. Together we work dynamically with this material, which invariably sheds light, triggers catharsis, or simply provides the desired relaxation and release from stress. [Read more]
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What the fuck is going on with Africa?
There's a tsunami of homphobia deluging the lands south of the Sahara. Zimbabwe's dictatorial headman, Robert Mugabe, has spent the last half-decade in an antigay snit, calling queers "lower than pigs and dogs." The president of The Gambia has threatened to behead gays unless they leave the country. A Cameroon court ordered that eleven men already jailed for seven months be subjected to anal exams to, absurdly, determine if they were gay. In Malawi, where a same-sex engagement ceremony had already led to arrests, another man was busted for possessing posters that read "Gay Rights Are Human Rights."
And then there's the sad story that's been hitting the headlines and provoking responses, from Obama on down: Uganda's proposed death penalty for some gay "crimes."
But lest all this scary stuff depress you, there's also the rather risible news that antigay Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa recently showed queer fuck films to his flock. Yea, verily, the preacher unspooled Kenny Does Kampala for 300 lucky parishioners, and he did it—yes—right there in his church. Reports indicate that the porn pics in question dated from the 1970s and featured white men; at least the Manic Christian had the good taste to include images of Al Parker and his magnificent dick rather than the current crop of interchangeable "actors" with shaved pubes. When challenged about his tactic of showing Christian children pictures of naked men with stiffies—precisely the tactic we're told that pedophiles use to seduce the innocent—Ssempa declared: "In Africa, what you do in your bedroom affects our clan, it affects our tribe, it affects our nation." He didn't explain exactly how it does, though; perhaps he's worried about a potential shortage of AstroGlide in Entebbe. [Read more]
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