Translate

Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy New Year for 2013


Happy New Year in real life and Second Life!

Here's hoping you and yours have a wonderful year this year, EVEN THOUGH the world didn't come to an end in 2012, as USUAL. Gotta happen sooner or later, though!


Have all the greens and black-eyed peas you like, baby, but I'm eating the luckiest dish of all! Image source: Sex and Submission.com.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Optimism

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Aubrey O'Day Naked Tied and Gagged, For Reals


Aubrey O'Day, naked and chained for a spread in Playboy Magazine. Tasty! Image source: Playboy.com.

Aubrey O'Day is an American singer, songwriter, model, fashion designer and reality TV star who's used her silky golden skin, gorgeous figure and beautiful blond hair into a low-level celebrity status. She can sing, too, apparently.


Aubrey O'Day, gagged for the Noh8 campaign. Tasty! Image source: Noh8 campaign.

Now with most celebrities, you don't get a lot of nudity and bondage, and you don't get them together when you do, but O'Day is generous with the bondage and nudity, undoubtedly because her remarkable looks have extended the range of her career. Don't get me wrong, she's a very competent singer, as good as most pop singers, maybe better. But all you need to get a very good music video for her is put her in something sexy and let her do some dancing and singing.


Aubrey O'Day strapped and tied in what appears to be a vidcap from her music video.

Take the picture above, it's common enough for vocalists to wear something with black straps on it so the celeb websites will go "Kinky" because they don't know from kinky, but O'Day is not only appearing in what appears to be straps and very little else, she also is leashed or tied to something as well. Actual bondage! Who's a thunk it?


Aubrey O'Day on just another day at the beach, wearing a fringed micro thong that leaves you wondering not if, but when, her vagina will be flashing others (Full disclosure: it never does.).

Even when she's not naked or in bondage, O'Day has a taste for the risque. The fringed bikini bottom she wears above does not expose any part of her womanly parts, but its design makes it appear that it will do so at any second. Now THAT'S fashion design! And O'Day is the only person I've ever seen wearing anything like it. This is one hot celebrity!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Calculating the Tip


When the girls at the salon had her disrobe and strapped her into the hair straightener and told her that she would spend two hours there, she was thinking they would get NO tip even if it WAS a $200 hairdo. Then they brought out the Sybian ... Image source: Device Bondage.com.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Slutty Christmas!


"So tell me again why it was such a great idea for BOTH of us to be tied and gagged?"
"SHUT UP! Oh, right, you're gagged. So you never said that!"
Image source: Second Life.


Turns out we CAN do it while both of us are tied! I KNEW it!"


Oh my!"

"You go out and get the present."
"I can't I'm all tied up and gagged and stuff."
"I am all tied up and gagged and stuff, too!"
"So YOU go get it!"
"YOU'RE the slave!"
"No more a slave than you!"
"Let's just wait and see if some nice man will bring it in to us."
"Good plan ... I'm sure we'll find SOME way to reward him, bound and gagged and naked though we are."

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Santa's Slave Girl


"Well Santa, I'd like to be tied up and left under the tree for some lucky man to find and, um ... play with ... now would Santa like a lap dance on his manly North Pole?" Image sourse: Second Life Gor.

Here's hoping all the ones who want to be found tied up under the Christmas tree and all the ones who want to find semeone tied up under the Christmas tree have a very Merry Christmas.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Fifty Shades of News Bits


Fifty Shades of Gray has inspired a workout. Do tell. Bandwagon-jumping continues apace. They've also got a new video out of George Takei reading Fifty Shades of Grey aloud which is SUPPOSED to be hilarious, and to have gone viral, but I watched it, and ... meh. So no link!
Also, a cogent and interesting analysis of the prospects for a Fifty Shades of Grey movie that predicts the movie will be bizarre. If it's bizarre, I think that will be a success, because that means somebody will have TRIED to make it work. I think it will just suck. But do read the analysis, and if you like, my response in the comments section.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

50 Shades of India


Turns out, a problematical fantasy in India. Image Source: Public Disgrace.com, I think that's Cherry Torn pictured.

A report in The Times of India announces that the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon is sweeping through country, sparking interest in BDSM in this one billion strong nation. The Times is reporting on the formation of The Kinky Collective a Delhi-based 15-person strong group that provides support for lovers of BDSM.

Wait ... 15 people? India? In India, 15 people is an empty room! Good lord, this is a trend sweeping the nation? Really?

One sense that the author fervently hopes so. If it were, they might have something sexy to report on in a nation that the story admits has a reputation for being very conservative sexually. To wit, it's prudish.

In addition to being prudish, Indian society is sexist and violent. So the search for good news about sex in India that's not completely bad probably gets kinda desperate at times. Here's a good article on all the sexism and violence toward women in India. Most of the violence and sexism appears to be in the rural and poor elements of India, which despite the rise of a detectable middle class in India, still constitutes one hell of a lot of people, the majority of that one billion. Jezebel recently got in on the issue, but Times of India does a much better job of covering it, as you might expect.

In an overwhelmingly violent, sexist culture like the ones many Indians live in, all sexual relationships are going to be profoundly affected by the sexism and violence. I guess if you are wealthy enough and sufficiently privileged, or sufficiently alienated from Indian society (the Kinky Collective was started by a couple, one of whom is transgendered -- hmmm) you might be able to figure your only sane path is to just go your own way, but most women are probably too afraid that men will tie then up and rape them for real to enjoy pretending that a man is tying them up and raping them for consensual kinky fuckery.

I don't know, it's a knotty problem, figuratively speaking. It's tempting to feel cheap moral superiority from the outside, but probably a bad idea, which is why I'm not gonna do it. I suspect that the only reasonable path is to take on the sexism and violence and put an end to it, which is what most reasonable people can agree on. How? Gonna be hard, gonna be a rough slog, as many of the originators of the sexism and violence are illiterate, young, poor and male, a hard group to reach. But most of them have mothers and sisters, and with the same kind of full court press that has been applies in other societies, they'll learn. Sadly, they will almost inevitably learn ... eventually, which will do little good for the women being victimized now.

In the meantime, maybe Fifty Shades of Grey will provide a nice fantasy of kinky, romantic love for those Indians that are at liberty to enjoy it, and perhaps it can preach the subversive message that pretendy sexual submission is all fun and can last throughout a lifetime, while the real thing is nasty, short and brutish.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Doll Bondage Strangely Over-Publicized


Oh noes! Barbie in bondage again! What a little slut she is! Image source: Ottawa Sun news report.

A display of dolls in bondage has attracted enough attention to prompt a news report by the Ottawa Sun.

Let me repeat that, so the full extent of the slow news day-ness is evident: dolls in bondage and wearing kinky outfits in the window of a sex shop called "Wicked Wanda" were adjudged to be interesting enough to be worthy of a television news report.

Of course, Ottowa is in Canada, and I imagine things can get pretty dull up there, it's sort of Northern Minnesota to the Max. Still ... doll bondage? How sensitized to bondage do you have to be for a sex shop showroom with dollies tied up in it to rate more than a shrug and moving on?

Maybe I'm jaded, I dunno.


Now when THIS starts showing up in showrooms ... STOP THE PRESSES! Image source: Hogtied.com.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Getting Bendy


Many people pooh-poohed her for visiting the chiropractor, saying his treatments were not really medicine ... but they felt so GOOD ... afterward ... Image source: Hogtied.com.

Friday, December 14, 2012

A Romantic Evening


As she hurried to finish licking her gruel from the plate before the candle burned down too low, the slave thought, "When Mistress promised me a candlelit dinner, this was not what I had in mind!" Image source: Training of O.com.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Anne Hathaway Wardrobe Malfunction Doubles My Visitor Count


Anne Hathaway's naughty, naughty porn star clone Iona Grace answers the question: "What would Anne Hathaway look like if she were naked, tied, bit-gagged and relentlessly dildo-vibed by a masked minion?" We believe it would look a lot like this! Image source: Hogtied.com.

I noticed that the hits on this blog have more than doubled, and looking around, I see that Anne Hathaway has had a wardrobe malfunction, which has apparently sent many fans looking for more. I've seen the unretouched wardrobe malfunction photos (thank you, Google!) and it's nothing much. Kink.com model Iona Grace, who bears a certain resemblance to Hathaway in some photos and has a really beautiful body, shows so much more!

Strange how things work out. I've been writing what I think are some pretty good posts of late and they've had no effect on visitors, but Anne Hathaway experiences a wardrobe malfunction and I'm swamped. Not that I'm complaining! Much...

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Random House Buys Lena Dunham's Grocery List for $3.7 Million


Lena Dunham in an intimate moment in the first episode of her HBO series, which she writes, directs and stars in. Image source: Vidcap from the HBO series "Girls."

E.L. James and Lena Dunham have one thing in common: they are both women who won the Writing Lottery, gaining incomes in millions of dollars for writing books. (Dunham hasn't written her book yet, she scored a $3.7 million advance on the basis of a 66-page book proposal).

The other thing that they have in common is that their talent does not at all match the rewards they have won (that's why I call it the Writing Lottery -- more on that later). I'm not saying that neither of them is talented, or hard-working, just that the products they produce are, well ... kinda mediocre.

If there were some sort of meritocracy involved in who got money for writing, John Crowley would have scored a 500 million dollar advance for his novel "Little, Big" which is so much better than anything that James and Dunham have ever written or done that it's literally (not figuratively) beyond comparison.

(You may think I am not in a position to judge Dunham's book, as it has not been written yet, but it just so happens I am: Gawker got hold of her entire book proposal and published it online. I didn't read the whole proposal, just glanced at it when the flying monkeys dropped it off. And I CAN'T read it now and you can't either, because Gawker took the proposal down after Dunham's lawyer threatened legal action if they kept it up. However, Gawker DID leave up 12 lines from the proposal which they hilariously appended to demonstrate how self-involved and silly the book proposal is. Read it, it's hilarious.)

Also, I have seen or tried to watch several eps of Lena's HBO series "Girls" which is a lot better than her book proposal but still kinda mediocre. Of course, I am not the demographic for her series (self-involved coastal twenty-somethings who are either wealthy or wannabe wealthy -and who doesn't wannabe wealthy? But still, I know mediocre when I see it, and this is high mediocre ... it doesn't challenge you on any level, unless you are one of those people who is perpetually challenged by the thought that twenty-something women have sex and like it, in which case I'd have to say you're just plain old challenged. Some of the dialogue is kinda witty, the characters are not entirely superficial, impressive for someone Dunham's age, but not brilliant stuff at all.

I think the reason Dunham won the Writing Lottery are almost entirely demographic. She's a rich, pretty (I mean real life pretty, Dunham is Hollywood ugly), smart, Jewish woman living in New York City. Now there are a TON of rich, pretty, smart, Jewish women living in New York City who have not won the Writing Lottery. But Dunham did a few things right. She made a an indie film called "Tiny Furniture" that got some buzz, parlayed that into her HBO series "Girls", and has parlayed the premium cable success of "Girls" into a $3.7 million book deal.

In fact, the art that Dunham has show the most skill at is The Art of the Deal, arguably. I don't see the book deal so much as a reward for great achievement as a case of rich, Jewish, New York publishers anointing One Of Their Own with $3.7 million for being able to do the literary equivalent of toddling about without falling over.

I mean, when Stephen King was writing bestsellers every time he put pen to paper and each bestseller became a successful movie, people were joking that publishers were bidding on the chance to buy his grocery lists. Well, guess what? According to the Gawker article, "Fully 13% of the proposal's pages are devoted to reproducing a diary Dunham kept of what she ate in 2010." Yes, Random House ACTUALLY IS buying Dunham's shopping list for $3.7 million!

Now I can't blame Dunham for being willing to accept this largesse -- I'd be willing to accept it too, if it were offered to me, even on the basis of me fitting the demographic and my grocery lists being the thing to be published. But it does exemplify everything I HATE about the traditional publishing industry -- centered in New York, insular, greedy, myopic, and prone to exploit anyone it can for money, while wasting money on mediocrities that fit its demographic. (Remember when about half of all mainstream novels were about middle aged men, generally academics or publishing industry folks, who were living in the Northeast (often New York) and cheating on their wives while experiencing Mid-Life-Crisis?).

Contrast this with E.L. James and Fifty Shades. I give James higher points for originality and challenging work -- the reason Fifty Shades succeeded was that it did beautifully integrate its BDSM themes into the traditional romance novel structure. Of course, James had a lot of help, after reading the Obsidian Wings website's account of how the Twilight community helped her with editing and feedback, it might reasonable have been given the byline, "By E.L. James, with considerable help and support from the Twilight fanfic community."


It can be difficult to integrate this sort of scene into a traditional romance, but E.L. James managed it, with plenty of help and feedback from the Twilight fanfic community. Image source: Training of O.com.

But the fact that James started her book out as straight up fanfic under the name “Icedragon Snowqueen” shows me that she started out just wanting to write a story that she enjoyed and cared about, working with the Twilight community to make her book better in a very humble and creative way. There was no Art of the Deal here, just Art, pure and simple.

In fact, it was the Twilight and online community that made "Fifty Shades" a success. They bought the online version in droves, and when Amazon's numbers showed Fifty Shades beating the crap out of the sales of the traditional publishing industry's bestsellers in the online marketplace without a BIT of help from all the publicists, agents and marketers that were flogging THEIR books, well, it didn't take a LOT of brains to see that the thing to do was to get that book printed up and in stores and get the hype machine going for it.

So, even though E.L. James just an average-looking Brit middle-aged housewife with no connections to the New York Publishing industry (the book had originally been published by Australian outfit that specialized in publishing converted fanfic to non-fanfic after the process called “filing the numbers off” had been completed), the publishing industry started a bidding war over her manuscript, netting her milions when Random House won.

But here's the difference between what Random House bought from James and what Random House bought from Dunham: James' book was a completed manuscript that had already been proven an online bestseller, beating THEIR bestseller. It was NOT a 66-page writeup, 13 percent of which consisted of a listing of what foods James at in 2010.

You see the difference? A purely economic decision, no demographics involved, for the seven-figure advance James got for her book. (I can't find any more definite figure for E.L. James' advance than “seven figures” so it could be as little as $1 million or as much as $9 million … I would not be surprised at all to learn that it was less than what Dunham got for her book proposal.)

Now in my opinion James' book is a pretty good romance novel, but not a great one, and not a great book. It is mostly a triumph of technique, like John Norman's Gor novels, of seamlessly integrating BDSM sexuality into an existing genre (in Norman's case, sword and sandal fantasy adventures).

But the point is, it got bought because it was loved by its readers and fans, not the publishers whose first instinct would be to ignore such a book. “Fifty Shades” got thrust upon the publishing industry, the publishing industry did not thrust it on readers, as is their usual practice. That in my mind has merit. The book may not be great literature, but people love it.

If you want to read a GREAT novel, try John Crowley's fantasy novel “Little, Big.” It has no BDSM sex in it, and although there is sex it is not at all graphic. But what it is, is beautifully written, with an imagination on a scale that takes you completely into another world, in a very sly and intelligent way. THIS is a book that succeeds of merit. All I know of John Crowley is that he lives in the Northeast and does research for film and video documentaries for a living. He may be Jewish, wealthy, a New Yorker, or not, I don't know, and I don't care. HIS book has merit. WHATEVER the means by which it was published (I'm betting an editor read it and fell in love with it as so many have) is all right with me.

But I'm pretty sure that Little Big did not get any seven figure book advance. I REALLY doubt it got six figures. Five figures … maybe, I think Crowley had several books published by the time “Little, Big” came out. But it could easily have been just four figures, it's fantasy. But, damn … what a MASTERPIECE. Read it, I dare you. Used copies are for sale real cheap over at Amazon if your finances are straightened.

Now the marketing machinery is going to grind out its releases for Dunham's book, and for all I know, it may be good, but I doubt it. It is clearly, “Item designed to appeal to readers for a variety of demographic reasons.” So do yourself a favor. Buy Little, Big, instead, or search out some good fanfic that might appeal to you. Don't let Random House recoup its stupidly given advance to Dunham with your dollars.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

5000 Shades of Grey


"Oh, no, my name's not Bella, it's Anna ... no, it's Ariadne ... yeah ... Ariadne!" Image source: Device Bondage.com.

I read with pleasure that Random House is giving $5000 to each and every employee of the company who has been with them for more than a year, right down to the lowliest janitor and administrative assistant, in celebration of the tremendous success of "Fifty Shades of Grey" which has sold almost 50 million copies worldwide, at one point constituting one out of every five books being purchased by adults.

I applaud Random House for their brave generosity at a time when corporations in general are behaving with incredible stupid dickishness toward their employees and customers in reaction to the Democratic election victory. For example, Applebee's Restaurants, Papa John's restaurants, and Darden, the Corporate Monster that owns Red Lobster, Longhorn Steaks and Olive Garden have all announced moves that will decrease employees' wages, hours or status (moving from full time to part time) explaining that the now-likely continuation of Obamacare into law "necessitated" it.

In contrast with this sort of corporate dickishness, Random House looks really great!

However, I am not entirely delighted by the bonus, because I think part of it comes as a result of a capitalist organization looting a gift economy. I am referring of course to the Twilight fanfic community from which Fifty Shades of Grey. Remember, it started out as a straight up fanfic called "Master of the Universe" by Icedragon Snowqueen (James' pen name for fanfic) with characters lifted straight from the book.

And a key part of what made "Master of the Universe" and by extension, "Fifty Shades of Grey," so successful, was the work that some Twilight fans put into Master of the Universe for free, editing it skillfully to take it up another notch. Obsidian Wings wrote about their work, with examples. Clearly they had a LOT to do with the story's success, much more than most Random House employees.

Of course, the Twilight fanfic editors got nothing for their work. They did not sign a contract or anything like that, they just edited a story they liked, because they liked it, expecting nothing more in return than the thanks of the community and the chance to read the story.

Still, it does.not.seem.right!

Now I know legally the Twilight fanfic editors are entitled to nothing. But so often, what's legal has little to do with what is ethical. And I don't think this is a problem that could be solved by giving some Twilight fanfic editors a few thousand dollars (though it WOULD be the right thing to do!). But I do believe we are going to have to eventually deal with the moral issues of capitalist organizations essentially looting gift economies, and giving nothing in return. Perhaps quite soon, if publishers continue trolling the Twilight fanfic community for new works to publish.

Coming up soon: E.L. James vs. Lena Dunham vs. John Crowley. Really!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Soviet Style Heroic Sexual Imagery


"It's not good night, Grulenka ... it's good-bye!" Image source: Public Disgrace.com.

Found this pic on Public Disgrace, and for some reason, it has a real "art" feel to it. Especially the face of the woman on the bottom doing a little breath control of the woman riding her strap-on. She looks like one of those heroic Soviet-era nudes, all flaring nostrils and steely eyes and smiling but firm determination to advance the cause of worker's solidarity throughout the world. (That's James Deen adding to the woman's excitment from the rear.)


"Workers of the world unite! ... and strangle those capitalist beyotches!" Image source: Public Disgrace.com.


Heroic, indeed! That is one beautiful woman ... Image source: Public Disgrace.com.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Jabba the Hutt Has A Celebrity Clone: Roger Ailes

Check out those crazy Jabba the Hutt eyes on Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News.
Image source: Reality! Fair and balanced reality!

So I saw this pic of Roger Ailes and those eyes of his just screamed that he was a celebrity clone of Jabba the Hutt. In human form of course. But really, if he were a Hutt his appearance would not change much. He'd look a lot like this:

That's Ann Coulter playing Slave Liea to Ailes' Jabba the Hutt like she always does on Fox News. Image source: Reality also, of course. Imaginary reality, you know, the one they cover on Fox News.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Fifty Shades of Lame Party Game


Now THIS is a Fifty Shades of Grey style party game! Image source: Training of O.com.

As Fifty Shades of Grey the book has spread out into mass culture, one of the things I've envisioned happening to it has happened: in at least one instance, it has had the kink bowlerized right out of it. I mean, completely: let me introduce you to the Fifty Shades of Grey party game, a game that has no kink in it whatsoever.

Basically, it's a card game in which people are asked a series of vanilla questions and then they try to guess most accurately who would be a good match for the answer, or something along those lines. It's generic embarrassing sexy-ish party drivel. As one commenter on the Cafe Mom post but it, "It's one of those games designed to be a gift you give someone to embarrass them at a party, but which will never be played."

I've tried to figure out why anyone would sell a "Fifty Shades" branded item that is sure to disappoint all of the 50 million people who have bought the book, and all I can figure is a combination of greed, short-sightedness and cynicism. The game-makers objective is to sell as many units as possible, that's all. And they figure that having branded the game "Fifty Shades" they've done all they need to in order to attract people who read the book, so now they are after the dollars of people who have not read the book and probably don't even like it's subject matter. So they squeeze the bondage content right out of the game, so Aunt Sarah in Dubuque who doesn't like sex at all won't find it too offensive.

Of course, word of mouth will kill this game dead, and I'm happy to report that all three reports I've read about the game in various media point out that it's very vanilla, in varying degrees of subtlety. (CafeMom is the most blunt of the group, but then, they've got an active group of readers and responders who won't let them get away with crap.)

There IS a Red Room Expansion pack, totally undescribed in any report I've read, which MAY have kinky content, but really, if there is a more classic case of throwing good money after bad than buying the Red Room Expansion Pack, I don't know what it might be.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

You Are Being Lied To About Human Trafficking


Your typical anti-human trafficking organization would like you to think this is a real thing that happens every day, all over the world, thousands of times. It's a BDSM fantasy, which is pretty much what human traffickers are trying to sell you in lieu of reality. Image source: Training of O.com.

There are many organizations in the US that make a lot of money by promulgating lies, Fox News being the lead suspect, but there are some bottom-feeders swimming in the murky depths as well, and I'm not just talking about wild-eyed types like Joel Gilbert.

One particular group has been enormously successful, and that's the human trafficking alarmists. They've been so successful that MSNBC, a putatively left-leaning cable channels, has fallen for their tripe and regularly broadcast alarmist programs about human trafficking and sex slavery which are dripping with misinformation and bad numbers.

The Honest Courtesan, a website of a former prostitute, has been doing yeoman work in getting out the truth about human trafficking. She's even created a post full of cites to sources that give true numbers for human trafficking (hint: there is little or none of it going on) and exposing the really dubious techniques the anti-trafficking groups are using to gin up the numbers.

(By the way, the Honest Courtesan may very well be the smartest blog out there on sexual topics, it is very definitely worth reading and exploring, so DO check it out! Laci Green may be wise beyond her years, but the Honest Courtesan is wise, period.)

Here's a brief summary of what is ACTUALLY happening to remember next time you see an MSNBC documentary entitled: "Sex Slaves in America" or something to that effect. There are anti-trafficking organizations in the US that are making millions of dollars in grants from the US government to oppose human trafficking in America. They are generally the source of all the bogus numbers, which are arrived at by such devices as defining every youth who lives near the Mexican OR Canadian border as being at risk for being trafficked. They are doing it strictly to keep the money flowing. If they cared at all about people coerced into sex work, they wouldn't lie about them so massively.

The anti-sex trafficking people get the government grants because their brand of lies has some strong constituencies. One, they got the anti-sex moral conservative crowd. Two, they got the anti-sex prudo-feminist crowd (the Honest Courtesan calls them neofeminists, a term she coined, just as I coined prudo-feminist to describe the exact same set of behaviors among a certain class of feminists), three, they got the anti-prostitution crowd.

Now both the moral conservative crowd and the prudo-feminist crowd dislike prostitution, for different reasons. But they're not same as the anti-prostitution crowd, which encompasses them but ALSO includes the trade-unionism-of-the-married crowd (a Shavian borrowing). The TUOTM crowd consists of married women who see prostitutes as potential poachers on their men. They tend to clothe their objections in the language of the moral conservatives (and sometimes of the prudo-feminists) but their essential deal is protecting their husbands from temptation.

Because progressives, libertarians and some feminists openly supporting legalization of prostitution, laws against prostitution have become increasingly difficult to justify through traditional means. There's now a debate over prostitution, with some nations legalizing it, or at least de-criminalizing it, which of course is a problem for law enforcement and prisons, which make money from it.

That's what makes the whole human trafficking narrative so fucking appealing to conservatives and prudo-conservatives. In the libertarian/progressive/feminist narrative, prostitutes are women who simply have the entrepreneurial spirit and exercise it in the field of sex work. Legalization and regulation are the obvious things to do in this narrative, to protect the public health and give the sex workers the same rights as other workers.

But in the human trafficking narrative, prostitutes are victims, kidnapped, coerced (i.e., tortured and threatened) into performing sex work against their will, and for the profit of their owners/pimps/madams rather than themselves. Obviously the thing to do here is to get law enforcement involved, bust the traffickers and free the trafficking victims so they can work in other fields.

Well, there are undoubtedly some women who get trafficked, but every time you look at the numbers created by US anti-trafficking groups the numbers just crumble like dust, because the truth is very few women are trafficked. One woman trafficked is too many, of course, but frankly, the kind of response called for by the lying anti-trafficking groups is ALL out of proportion to the actual problem, and points to all the wrong solutions.

So next time you see some human trafficking special on MSNBC or CNN or CNBC, all of whom have drunk deeply from that well, know that you are being lied to about human trafficking, just as egregiously as Fox News lies about everything. Their goal is to induce a moral panic in you, to make you not think about what is being said. To hell with the lot of them, I say.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Meet Laci Green, Video Sex Blogger


Laci Green (right) and her favorite drunk lesbian in one of her videos. Image source: vidcap from Laci Green Youtube video.

Laci Green is a sex educator with a series of videos on Youtube. She's very young for a sex educator, just 23 years old, but most of her videos are sensible and smart, way smarter than her years would seem to indicate. She's also very easy on the eyes. Her presentations tend to be lively and upbeat whether she's talking about anal sex or freaky looking labia. Her voice has a tendency to bleat at times, but it's more an endearing thing than an annoying one, at least, from my POV.

Laci does not get Fifty Shades of Grey, but hell, most people don't, though I was disappointed that she did not get what a good thing it is that it has people talking more openly about BDSM sex. Anyway, she's fun, her videos are lively, give her a watch and see what you think. In the particular video I've linked to, Hanna talks openly about what it's like to come out a lesbian, both to herself and those around her, and it was a relaxed, friendly discussion, and it was vaguely amazing that such a topic could be dealt with so easily and well and in such a relaxed manner. We have come a long way ... well, some of us.

Green has a deal coming up with the Discovery Channel to do a news program -- good on her. It probably won't be as sexy as her Youtube videos, but not everything she does needs to be sexy. We can just hope her Discover news program is informed by the same intelligence and sensibility that her Youtube videos are.


OK, this was the video that was playing in my mind when I was watching the Youtube video up top. It's from Kink Live.com, of course. I have a dirty, dirty mind, and it generally improves the quality of my viewing experiences a lot.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Beyond The Fringe: Bondage Porn New World Order Slavery Mashup


"I thought the New World Order was a fashion design label!" Image source: vidcap from the Rocket Radio Show.

Well it's time for some bull-goose looneytude, and I've got a topnotch example to hand. This Youtube video from the Rocket Radio Show is a weird mashup of New World Order conspiracy theorizing, bondage porn, sexy dancing, and inaccurate accounts of real life slavery.

Of course, the theory that Obama's mama was a bondage model still takes the cake for whacky political theorizing, but this one makes up in bull goose lunacy what it lacks in current political relevance.

The New World Order is a longtime right-wing conspiracy theory (we're talking Woodrow Wilson style longtime!) about various international groups -- leftists, jews, the Triateral Commission, communists, Catholics, travel agencies, lingerie football leagues, you know, the usual -- who have established a cabal intent on setting up a single government to rule the entire world (a "one ring to bind them all" kind of thing from the conservative POV).

The government would eliminate all lesser government and force us all to take up fluoridation, miscegenation, gay marriage, Communism, have abortions, and proclaim all glory to the Hypno-Toad, or the Trilateral Commission, depending.

But Rocket of the Rocket Radio Show, the creator of this video, thinks the New World Order will be achieved via a worldwide catastrophe of some kind, and that the miserable few survivors of the catastrophe will be literally enslaved by the New World Order, and then he goes into this long diatribe about slavery with lots of images of women in slavery (always women, a good indicator we are into sex fantasy territory here) from various movies and also some BDSM-inspired Poser art that I've seen on the walls of Second Life taverns and on DeviantArt.

His point was that viewers do not understand the reality of slavery, how horrible the real thing was, and he's probably right about that. But he talks about commercial (i.e., non-war) galleys in Roman times being rowed by all-female crews, who had rings welded in their labia, which were welded to rings set in the bench the oarwoman sat at, so that she could never get up from it (eeeew).

It sure sounded like a fantasy to me so I did some research. The Wikipedia page on the topic of galley slaves assured me that Roman galley slaves were largely a myth: most galleys were oared by free men. I could find no reference to real galleys rowed by female galley slaves, though there were a number of BDSM related fiction novels on the topic and one mainstream movie with such imagery.

(Galley slaves chained to their benches DID exist, they appear to have been confined to the 15th through 17th century in Europe and the Middle East, where being a galley slave was a common punishment. All male. No fun.)


The Magic Christian features naked female galley slaves in chains, but to be fair, it seems to realize it's fiction. Image source: vidcap from the Magic Christian found here, a post I'll be linking to again soon.

Anyway, watch the video, enjoy, I lurve me some bull-goose looney conspiracy theorizing, and who knows, maybe Fox News will take this stuff seriously at some point, and I'll have a good retro-laugh over it.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Town and Gown Bondage Issues


"Hmmm ... does yes mean yes when she's screaming it?? Image source: Hogtied.com.

Well apparently colleges and universities are lettings students have their little BDSM clubs where the students can explore their BDSM fantasies in a safe, consensual environment instead of doing it the old-fashioned way, via the unsafe, nonconsensual environment of fraternity and sorority hazings, which occasionally result in death for the hazees. (For some reason, Harvard's decision to recognize a campus BDSM club is making the rounds of the big aggregator blogs and the mainstream news blogs, even though it's kind of a non-story. Probably because it's Harvard and a lot of the Very Big Deal People went there.)

The New York Observer ran a story on the topic, which said that the new groups while exploring BDSM were having difficulties with issues of consensuality and staying within boundaries. Logical, right? Noobies gotta noob.

But I find myself really dubious about the reporting on the story's nonconsensual aspect. It starts out talking about a student, Maria, joining Harvard's BDSM club, but then when it starts to talk about the nonconsensual behavior, it shifts over to another student, Victoria (a pseudonym) at an unnamed Ivy League school, who didn't even join a club, she went to a meetup she found on the Fetlife bulletin board.

As Jezebel has reported recently, Fetlife has a very dodgy reputation when it comes to nonconsensual activities, though Jezebel's headline about the story was kinda sleazy in and of itself.

Fetlife is NOT a campus BDSM club, it's not allied with colleges, and already had a bad reputation due to many accusations of coercion and nonconsensual BDSM by former members. The article then covers Fetlife's issues very thoroughly and then segues back to campus BDSM clubs without making any real connection between the two.

It's a cheap bait-and-switch, arrant scumbuggery, and the New York Observer ought to be ashamed. It tries through its headline and lead to establish that there is this big controversy about nonconsensual behavior in campus BDSM clubs by deliberately confusing them with Fetlife's issues.

I guess the really big lesson here is that you need to watch BDSM related stories in the mainstream media very carefully. Mainstream media have been lying for years and falling for every trick the political pundits pull on them to make their dubious points, it's little wonder they'll do a terrible job of reporting on BDSM-related topics with all the baggage that mainstream media, which are increasingly appealing only to Very Old People (I'm not talking about Baby Boomers, I'm talking about their parents!) generally bring to sex.

Also, Fetlife is a sleazy organization, if you know anybody who's part of it, you should warn them, just in case they don't know about all the ruckus that is being raised over them.

As for consensuality issues with campus BDSM clubs ... it still seems plausible that it might exist -- look at hazings which are straight-up torture that sometimes ends in the death of the hazee. But when come back, bring evidence of SOME sort, New York Observer.