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by Shayla Pandava Most sources consider the OSHA fines a response to the fact that five porn stars turned up HIV-positive back in April, notably Darren James and 18 year-old Lara Roxx fresh from Canada who'd only been working in the business for a couple of months. The HIV scare essentially shut down the industry, for two months. That's because when someone tests positive, the group that monitors the industry's AIDS testing, known as AIM, notifies all the actors who have worked with the infected person (14 in the case of Darren James), during a "window" period of time (porn stars are tested monthly). The positive test of porn star Tricia Devereaux, led to notification of 75 actors who had worked with the actress. Once notified, actors are quarantined for a 60-day incubation period until they can get retested. In the latest snowball of quarantines, production companies all over the San Fernando Valley went dark, voluntarily, while actors waited nervously for their test results to come back negative. Meanwhile, various porn producers got together to try and figure out what course of action they should take. Some decided that they would voluntarily use condoms in all filming. This list includes Erotic Angel, Video Team, Metro, Heatwave Entertainment, Zane Entertainment, Metro and Moonlight. It should be mentioned that some of the biggest houses -- Vivid, Wicked and VCA -- have been all-condom for years. But even production companies that have decided all-condom porn is the best course of action under the circumstances are nervous. Will consumers buy porn with condoms? Will established producers lose market share to underground, homegrown, and foreign products? Vivid, Wicked, and VCA don't seem to worry about it. But they are big, putting out as many as 200 titles a year. The gay porn industry has also been using condoms for years without really skipping a beat. And there's also an argument that you can shoot the scenes so nobody can tell. Enter Adam Glasser, the infamous Seymour Butts and father of gonzo porn. He's also the father of an elementary school boy living the rather ordinary life you can see on the Showtime program Family Business. After the April HIV cases, Glasser voluntarily decided to join the all-condom ranks -- rather vocally (have we ever known Butts to do anything on the QT?) -- in his videos from now on. Butts' Gonzo films, he has said, are all about the pleasure. Filming with a hand held camera in hotel rooms, the back of his van, and other cinema verite locales, Butts often participates in the sex acts himself -- whether he's visible is another matter. Butts films are famous for some of the raunchiest, most natural-looking, free-for-all, consensual sex in the industry. Butts is also well known for standing up for his porn production ethic, that the acts depicted be consensual, fun, natural, and then: anything goes. In 2001, Glasser was jailed for making a video that included fisting (Tampa Tushy-Fest 2). The fisting element was rather impromptu, according to Glasser, suggested by one of the actresses, Chloe, and discussed only half an hour before he shot the infamous footage. He could have pleaded guilty and taken a fine, but instead, he fought the obscenity charges in court. In interviews he said that if he buckled under, it would open up a path for regional lawsuits against himself for the same offense as well as setting a precedent that would effectively stifle the inclusion of fisting in future porn. After over a year of legal battles, Glasser ended up pleading no contest to "public nuisance" charges, essentially clearing the way for porn makers to include fisting in their repertoire. Not everyone is on board the voluntary condom train. Notable exceptions are Extreme and Evil Angel, the latter owned by John (Buttman) Stagliano. Stagliano, who himself has been HIV-positive since 1997, claims that he makes it his policy not to "regulate" his actors' condom uses. Whether this means actors can do what they please, or whether it's Stagliano's way of saying he'll say no to condoms in his films, most reports on the condom issue include statements from actors confirming they've experienced being told to do a particular scene a certain way, take it or leave it. So unless all-condom production becomes the norm, actors will always feel some pressure to take the risks. The latest agreement among so many producers may help ease the pressure. And with the government getting into the picture, perhaps more production companies will follow suit. Glasser feels that the current heat on cleaning up the industry's safety practices is not going to die down. He has said that if OSHA doesn't have jurisdiction, some other agency -- like the Health Department, or worse -- will. Glasser points out that self-policing is preferable to incurring some broad-sweeping law (more than one CA state legislator has been revving their lawmaking engines over the issue) that might further narrow porn choices. As to the success of condom-filled porn films, Glasser is hopeful. He's cheerfully planning his first all-condom film with a "plot" that features the condom, and condom companies are approaching him to get in on his act. Glasser also looks forward to the day when the condom can be digitally erased from the film. But for now, he doesn't consider filming without condoms worth risking lives. If worst comes to worst, Glasser feels he's got his bets covered: if the industry goes all condom and viewers don't like it, they'll be paying more to get hold of his classic, pre-condom videos. 
by Shayla Pandava In spite of the fact that she's written a so-called "Ultimate Guide," Blue admits that in the end you have to do a lot of trial and error to finally get to where you can buy something and be pretty confident ahead of time that you're going to like it. This is probably due to the fact that everyone's sexual wiring is really custom-designed. And Blue's thesis is that the Southern Cali porn ideal is like no real person's out there. We like it, she seems to say, IN SPITE of its aesthetic. One of the best things about the guide is that Blue takes you through the porn world by production house or director, so that you can get a good feel for how porn changes through the eye of the beholder. It clearly gives you the sense of different styles. And this can help narrow your search incredibly. For example Libido Films are made by a male/female team, feature all kinds of raunchy sex and fairly good production values. Here's what Blue says about Libido's Edge Play: "The feature opens with an explosive female masturbation/female ejaculation onto the windshield of a parked, waiting limo in a dirty underground parking lot. And if that doesn't get your attention, the rest of the film will. A couple specializes in making the erotic fantasies of wealthy women come true and the fantasies are intense, outrageous, and hot as hell." The Ultimate Guide takes into consideration the many changes in the porn market over the years, especially the fact that a lot of women are now consumers of porn and women (often former female porn stars), more than ever before, are behind the cameras and the production companies. The Guide has a wise-ass rating system with icons that show up next to the film title. For example, an icon looking a lot like a pair of breasts means "Unsightly boob job. One (or more) of the actresses have obviously fake breasts. You may see visible scars, rippling under the skin, unrounded shapes, or 'frozen' breasts." Eeewww. Blue's book assures readers that in spite of this "unrealistic" look of the actors that everyone complains about, you can find hot, hot things that really turn you on, whether it be steamy plots, or wall-to-wall sex; raw, real-TV video production or slick filming. It also lets women know that there's something in porn for them; that porn can be a couple's play toy, just like any vibrator or dildo. For the porn aficionado -- and many of you here on AFF will fall in to this range -- Blue's earlier sections on how couples can use porn or on the wonders of the DVD for replaying your favorite video bits, will be old news. But the little tidbits about specialty porn and how to find it will fill in gaps: she discusses the relatively few movies that feature men actually coming inside women and the companies that specialize in real female orgasms. And she offers stray inside facts, like "real lesbian films almost always feature real-life lovers," that should enhance any treasure trove of porn trivia. Blue's overall view is nicely balanced -- the guide is there to help people find what they want to see -- and she scopes out the titillation value in every hidden corner of the porn world. The book also includes little insider info-boxes about porn legends (Traci Lords to Nina Hartley) or about porn phenomena (Defiant Productions (ooh yeah) to Snoop Dogg). One of the funniest boxes is simply the one listing some of Blue's favorite porn titles -- here are some prizewinners: Moulin Splooge, Honey I Blew Everybody, Saturday Night Beaver, and -- ta da -- Shaving Ryan's Privates. The expository portion of the book ends on a "don't try this at home" note with a chapter about safety and reality versus what you see in porn flicks. Complete with STD transmission charts, this chapter is not pretty. After all that excitement, you're ready for a whole chapter on terminology, which follows, and a chapter on resources: a whole pornucopia of web sites and addresses that include sexologists, erotic writers, and porn rental purveyors. Though it's the type of guide that will need to be updated pretty regularly (this is a 2003 release), most of the resources and titles are still topical.
by Shayla Pandava So this week, for Masturbation Month, we should probably celebrate all the ingenuity that has gone into masturbation over the years. Even during the nineteenth century, as they were applying all kinds of nasty implements to men to keep them from masturbation, the sexual ignorance of the times gave women a kind of special bonus. People didn't think women had orgasms like men did, so naturally they weren't as worried about women "doing the deed." In fact, as your masturbation handbook will tell you, in the late nineteenth century, it was thought that women with a certain condition -- they called it hysteria (it could have been anything from sexual frustration to depression to PMS) -- were actually in need of some kind of genital "relief." A woman's horniness was a medical condition. Oh glory! And so women slogged into and out of doctors' offices for the treatment: a quick hand job or masturbation by vibrator. Imagine, once upon a time a lady would take a trip to the doctor's and come home with a Cheshire grin on her face. Meanwhile many doctors considered the procedure quite routine, tedious even (he, he). Orgasm under the guise of "treatment" and "labor" -- quite ingenious. Such a dutiful doctor would perfunctorily pull down the lady's drawers, slide his hand and his electrical vibrating implement up the lady's dress until he reached her quim, spread her labia, stimulate her clitoris, and wait for the fireworks. That thrashing, moaning relief, he figured, meant he had purged her of whatever "tension" had gathered in her genitalia (uh, yuh). And the woman was free to go, a functional, less high-strung lady than the shrill wreck who had entered his office. True humanitarianism. So the vibrator was invented as a medical device, a tension release valve. Good Vibrations, the San Francisco Vibrator store that started all this Masturbation Month stuff, has a vibrator museum containing many of these old vibrator dinosaurs (most look like hand-held blow dryers with the odd automotive alternator thrown in). We can imagine that the medical procedure offering women relief from this hysterical build-up was certainly a cash cow for many a doctor's practice. Duty has its recompense, they must have said. From the late 1800s through the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, vibrators were advertised in mainstream women's magazines as carriers of "relief" or "youth" -- that would be around the time that Coke contained cocaine -- for a repressed era their wills had clever ways. But as Coke was approaching its last bottle of the cocaine-inclusive formula (1929), erotic films were showing just how nasty the vibrator could be, and it was all over, baby, for the mail order vibrator until the 1960s. These days, however, the happy masturbator has piles of toys to use in addition to the five bare sisters (which in the middle of a hurricane or battery shortage will always be there for you). They don’t even have to be bare fingers because we have finger rubbers. And there are toys for men and women. There are toys for every orifice. If you're part of a couple, let's count the his-and-her possibilities. The small lipstick vibrator that women often carry in their overnight bags, suits the clitoral orgasm nicely. But it can also be used on the male gonads: balls, penis shaft, head, base, for a great penile buzz. While one person's doing mouth work, the other can be performing hand work and then trade off. In the larger department, the hand-held vibrators that look like shoe polishers often come with several attachments that may include quite a variety. A massager with jellied fingers or a simple ball for her, and for him a "come cup" that can massage the head of his penis into a frenzy. Like the rather well-known Magic Wand, larger vibrators may come with vibrating attachments the size of tennis balls. Yes, if a lady likes intense stimulation on her clit, this toy will get the job done. But its real advantage comes from INdirect stimulation. Since part of the clitoris, the female G-spot, and the male prostate are internal, this type of toy can provide a many-pronged assault because it can stimulate lots of internal parts simultaneously and cause a kind of internal ripple effect. Whether you're male or female, give it a few minutes between your thighs, or better yet on your pubic bone, just to warm the cockles of your parts. Base of penis…outer labia…experiment with everything from thighs to pubes, and see how she tingles. Now when you're going solo -- as you may find yourself compelled to do in the interest of duly honoring Masturbation Month -- there are some really nice specialized toys for men and women. For women, it's probably the rabbit. Though the names may vary from retailer to retailer (there's usually something about a rabbit in the name) most toy retailers carry one. It has insertable vibrating penile object (that hopefully stimulates the G-spot), then in its middle it has beads or pearls that will vibrate around the vaginal opening, and finally, the "rabbit ears" are a tongue-like protuberance from the shaft that is designed to stimulate the clit. Three stimuli at once. These rabbit devices are notorious for causing sensational and repeated orgasms. And for men, it's the masturbation sleeve, the pocket pussy, the vaginal (often accompanied by anal) simulator. The difference between the sleeve and the sim is best looked at this way: the sleeve is something you hand-hold and jerk and the sim is something you anchor and fuck. Simulators (we're often told) are molded from the pussies of porn stars. Chasey Lain or Briana Banks, for example. Some of these sim cunts do look real enough to fuck, with their sweet inner labia, colorful vulva, and shaved or manicured bush. (At the far other extreme, some are so cheesy or hideous they could drive you to pee rather than penetrate.) With good materials and a lot of gooey water-based lube, the sensation of sliding in can also be quite realistic. (Keep a towel handy for when your gripping hand becomes a slipping hand). In terms of materials, silicone is the best for creating that fleshy feeling, but it's also the most expensive. The makers of RealDoll (a fuckable $6000 investment whose all three orifices are designed for dick) use silicone in their life-like doll vaginas and the experience is highly touted. (RealDoll's meaty, squeezable tits ain't bad either.) Latex and rubber, on the other hand, can be hit or miss. As for the many other "specially patented" materials with the futuristic names, it's anyone's guess -- unless you have an unbiased expert you can ask. It would help if you could feel and touch the materials first, but often that's not possible. When shopping online, do a lot of comparison shopping to get an idea of market values. Combine your research with the "you get what you pay for" rule of thumb and you should be OK. More often than not, these masturbators, from the sleeve to the simulated vagina, seem very tight -- in the sense of difficult to enter -- to begin with. Yet most men of average size who are determined to penetrate will get there. A lot of lube, a bit of practice and some experimentation will help develop familiarity with the toy and techniques for getting inside her. But as in real life, once the penis breaks through the hole, it's usually "let the good feelings begin." And then you can get fancy, a sleeve designed to take on a vibrator that slides in near the opening(s). The vibrating sleeve gives a guy quite a joy ride. So be persistent with your new toy. This is just the beginning of the path through the wonderful world of self-pleasuring toys. As any brief online search will tell you, there's no end to the toys you can find uses for -- solo or with partner. And since May is Masturbation Month, solo's a fine place to start on the path through the wanky wonders. So get pumping, diddling, or humping and enjoy.
by Shayla Pandava Since May is Masturbation Month, you may be hearing a bit of buzz about the art and its battered history through Puritanism. Toys in Babeland for example, in their historical overview reminds us that Mr. Kellogg invented cornflakes as a sort of anti-Viagra to curb the vile practice of masturbation. Kellog was seriously anti-self-love. If the flakes didn't take, his fallback plan was to circumcise the meat beater without an anesthetic. Oh, the nineteenth century. You gotta love it. Straight jackets, spike-filled penile sheaths, chastity belts -- all the human ingenuity that went into "curing" a poor "diseased" wanker. And they had good common sense to back them up. Dr. Susan Block recently cited some of the notions these people had about masturbation -- that it causes "warts, blindness, insanity, and hair on the palms," -- oh, and damnation. Lucky for us, ingenuity has moved on to i-pods and satellite phones (well, unless you count the evil geniuses at fuckingmachines.com). In her latest book, Orgasms for Two, Betty Dodson (the "oversexed grandmother" of masturbation) mentions that one girl she spoke to about masturbation thought that too much orgasmic pleasure might lead to heart attack. Alas, masturbation's bad rep lives on. As you read this and reminisce about things you've been told yourself about masturbation, you can probably come up with a long list of tribulations that might befall you if you masturbate. "It'll fall off." Heard that one? Or how about, "anyone who has to masturbate is a loser"? Pervert? Oversexed? Obsessed? ... Well, damn it, it's Masturbation Month and you can throw all that anti-data into the shredder and get a grip on yourself. We're going to party, slap-happy style. Masturbation Month was initially started by the owners of the San Francisco sex toy store Good Vibrations in response to all the flak Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders took for daring to mention that masturbation was a healthy thing (she lasted about 15 months). And now, here we are, in the ninth annual Masturbation Month, and sex enthusiasts and purveyors across the nation are celebrating by sponsoring special events, discounts, guest speakers, you name it. If you've got a really happening toy store nearby, you may even have a Masturbate-a-thon going in your neighborhood. Dark Lady in Portland is sponsoring a huge '50s themed Masturbate-a-thon bash on May 22. New York City's Toys in Babeland store takes its Masturbate-a-thon national with the film crew of HBO's Real Sex. The Real Sex folk'll be in the store May 16, from 3 - 9 p.m. to "see how they come." Unlike the Toys in Babeland production, the "hard work" of most masturbate-a-thons is done in private and you're on the honor system to report how many whacks or minutes or hours you put in. Like a walk-a-thon (except your fingers do the walking) you collect sponsors, use an official entry form, and get sponsors to pay up as soon as you record just how much of a wanker you are. Since there is yet no national Masturbate-a-thon committee, details vary from one sponsoring organization to another, including the charities that will benefit from the event. But you don't have to put it on paper to celebrate Masturbation Month. Rev up your favorite toy or seize your favorite joy stick and let er rip. Why? Because after hundreds of years of bad press, masturbation, we now know, is good for you. Let us count the ways: It's a learning experience. If you do it slow and take mental notes, you'll learn more about your sexual responses. Some women learn how to achieve orgasm through masturbation (the better for future lovers). It's healthy. Can you say cardiovascular workout? Also, recent studies connect ejaculation with lower rates of prostate cancer. And women's orgasm aids in healthy vaginal pH balance -- fewer yeast infections. Orgasm has been connected to better bladder control and weight loss, and the production of various hormones during sex can stimulate nurturing responses, improve mood disorders, reduce risk of heart disease. All these benefits come free with every masturbation session. In Eastern thinking, orgasm stimulates the flow of sexual energy; better flow equals more inner balance and better health. And doing it without a partner reduces the risk of infections that come with close contact (especially in the case of multiple partners). It makes your partner-sex better. You keep blood flowing into the area which strengthens the plumbing. You also exercise your PC muscles -- stronger PCs, better orgasms. Then you can teach your lover all you discover. Masturbation aids relaxation. It releases endorphins -- think runner's high. But it's also a way to take you out of your head and into your body. Your body can often uncomplicate what the mind spends all day complicating. Plus it's pure pleasure, and what's wrong with pleasure already? It's a gesture of self-acceptance. Nurturing starts at home. So do love and sex appeal. It is easier to attract love, when you are able to give it without guilt, shame, or self-consciousness. Love your body and others will love it too. And finally, masturbation is an inexpensive date, no strings attached, no head games, and it knows just how you like it. So go for it. [Next week, we'll talk about the tricks and the toys (yes, there are toys for men!) that will help fill out your celebration of Masturbation Month.]
by Shayla Pandava Mike Grenville, whose Sussex England organization BareWitness staged a protest last summer against genetically modified food (GM), feels it's perfectly fair for the disenfranchised to resort to nakedness in order to get their point across. He claims that in protesting something like GM, he and his fellow protestors are up against wealthy bio-tech interests that have millions to spend. And the tactics serve him well. The photographs of the "No GM" sign the protesters spelled in an open meadow with their naked bodies, June 2003, were soon splattered over the internet, newspapers, and TV. And since every good pic needs a context, Grenville got to sound off about GM for every news piece. The protests are usually of mixed gender (like the anti-GM protest), and there have been a few male-dominated turnouts, like a protest near Gainsville FL last winter where naked men formed a peace sign. And then there was the penis protest of New Zealand's National Penis Day, in which demonstrators let all hang out to protest a ban on health ads that showed the penis. But overall, the numbers in the world of naked protesting lean more heavily towards women. Last February when the Bush administration was leading up to the War in Iraq, 12 women went to Central Park, got naked, and lied down in 20 degree weather to spell out "No Bush" in the snow. This group was deliberately all women, and the organizer Wendy Tremayne explained that naked women bring vulnerability to the equation. She feels that this brings out people's compassion (which might also explain pulling the stunt in the snow). In fact, in the lead up to war in Iraq, naked protesting burst onto the political scene in protests all over the world. Australia, England, Hong Kong, South Africa, all have had their naked protests. In some respects, the idea of naked women sounds suspiciously like a holdover from the 'chicks up front' protest tactic of the '60s. But these days, the women organizing naked anti-war protests have sophisticated theories about what it means to bare the female body in protest. They cite that it brings up issues of vulnerability or embarrassment, that it takes advantage of female charm, but above all, they feel that it can make people rethink their war-like strategies. The group that may have started this latest spate of naked protests across the globe is out of Marin County, California. Started by 72 year-old Donna Sheehan, the group, made up mostly of women, refers to itself as Unreasonable Women Baring Witness. Their protest photos on the internet actually inspired Grenville, all the way over in England, to start his own protest organization, Bare Witness. And the two groups support each others' protests. The way Sheehan sees it, protests by naked women are about "restoring the power of the feminine to its rightful place as the protector of life." One of the group's core activists, Suzanne Hart, thinks the advantage of predominantly female naked protestors provides a contrast -- say, against a man with a gun. And that contrast is persuasive. In the title of her upcoming book on the group, Hart puts it this way: "Naked Vulnerability in The Face of Naked Aggression." If you look over the photos of the naked protests over the past couple of years, you'll see nude bodies, toe to toe, or enfolded into each other, or curled around each other, to form symbols or words, like "peace," "No WTO," "SOS" (in the Fairbanks Alaskan snow) or the clever "Buck Fush." Of course the spelling choices are limited by the number of people in these protests, which is often in the range of 20 or 30 bold strippers (just about right to spell "No War"). When the early spring protests of 2003 brought out record numbers of naked protestors against the Iraq War, a couple hundred in Montana and a whopping 700 naked women in Byron Bay, Australia. The hopeful flower-child energy of these protesters and their strategies seems almost a world apart from the slick glamour, media magnetic hard sell of the well-oiled PETA machine. These People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) choreograph elaborate events calculated to get them maximum media attention. "PETA learned early that if you take it off, the press will come running," says PETA spokesman Dan Shannon. A recent PETA campaign to protest cruelty to zoo animals features near-naked, very attractive girls painted in animal stripes. These activists spend an hour at a time sitting in a zoo cage while visitors at the zoo watch and sometimes make lewd comments. The latest PETA campaign, called "Live Make-out Tour," puts an attractive half dressed (guy wears under shorts) couple in a bed along a well-traveled street, and they make out. And they make out some more. The caption for this campaign is "Vegetarians Make Better Lovers." PETA wants people to make a connection between virility and healthy sex life and vegetarianism. "We've had to think of creative, upbeat, and sexy ways to get attention for the animals," Lisa Lange of PETA says. Ten years before Bearing Witness came on the scene, PETA was running their first naked campaign (a campaign usually comes complete with celebrity sponsors and national events that might capture media attention). And their first campaign, in 1990 featured the singing group, the Go-Gos, in the buff, but hiding behind a banner imprinted with the slogan "I'd rather Be Naked than Wear Fur." Protesting the fur industry, PETA garnered even more media attention by smuggling activists past the heavy security of major fashion shows. Once inside, the protesters would get naked (often with slogans painted on their bodies), and streak naked across the runway, until Security pulled them down. Those acts sure spiced up the nightly news. Perhaps one of PETA's most successful campaigns in that vein is what they call the "Human Race," where naked PETA activists streak naked down the streets of Pamplona with the stampeding bulls and throngs of men in machismo during the annual "Running of the Bulls" event. Talk about your vulnerability. "The running of the nudes . . . got the type of attention we'd been trying to get for years," says PETA's Lisa Lange. Most of the PETA activists meet the challenges and risks because they feel drastic measures are called for (fueled by their horrific video ads). Dan Shannon insists that PETA only brings out the heavy guns of nakedness, costumes, and good placement when letter-writing or other reasonable channels fail. "Sometimes the low key approach just doesn't work," Shannon says. Afterwards out come your naked-without-fur posters, your naked-zoo-animal impersonators, and other naked artillery. Though they may seem more militant, the naked PETA protesters experience the same embarrassment and vulnerability as the Peace activists. "Personally it can be very uncomfortable; people gawk at you," says one activist after she sat naked with pasties and body paint in a cage for an hour. For many of the women in Baring Witness, getting naked gives them a way of working through personal issues surrounding their bodies. They report things such as learning to be more open or accepting of themselves or of vulnerability or of their female nature. Donna Sheehan has even had to deal with hate mail on the Baring Witness web site. But PETA's naked protesters cite the cause as their cure for inhibition, and will likely address the embarrassment issue by saying, "This is nothing compared to what the animal goes through." Who knows? Maybe all this devotion to causes will coincidentally usher in a new era of openness about the human body and sexuality. At least, judging from the success of groups like BaringWitness, Bare Witness, and PETA, we'll be seeing a lot of nakedness in the upcoming protest season. And that's a good thing.
by Shayla Pandava The hallowed halls of Harvard are a prime example. This year, two Harvard students applied to register a new sexy magazine, H Bomb, as a recognized Harvard student enterprise (making it eligible to receive monies from student fees). Conservative groups on campus were not pleased. H Bomb is a sex-positive magazine that plans to print provocative articles on sex as well as erotic student photos -- naked college kids, both sexes, shot by fellow students. Even though the two Harvard girls creating the magazine got the idea from an established Vassar magazine called Squirm (apparently pretty squirmy, judging from the Harvard faculty's response to the sample copies), there was a good deal of controversial hoopla in the media back in February when the magazine's intentions became known. Luckily for the H Bomb squad, they made it through the approval process with only minor restrictions -- for example, students won't be able to take nude photos for the magazine in any of Harvard's buildings. There may be some flustered parents come May if H Bomb completes issue 1 on schedule. The magazine's co-founders are planning to pass their first issue out at graduation. Certainly with spring in the air, college campuses are alive with "educational" sex, classes, seminars, and weekly events that stir up local hornets' nests every chance they get. Yale's Sex Week, long on sexperts and academics but short on attendance, was the subject of debate that ranged from Connecticut to New York City. Penn State's, one-day Sex Faire, made quite an impression -- sculpting genitals out of clay, 18-part clitoris demonstration, games like Consensual Haircut and Orgasm bingo. The Faire had a decidedly female slant and plenty of giveaways: free female condoms and dental dams; free plastic specula (mirrored doctor's tools) to ladies after lessons in pussy prodding (or self-examination). The University of Illinois had a similar Fair and the center piece was a giant vagina where people could get their pictures taken with heads through the hole. Oh, my. Such creativity. You can bet that event drew some concerned letters from the locals. Mostly the letters of complaint stayed local. What drew even more flak was a lecture entitled "Sexploration" given by Tristan Taormino, author of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women, during U. North Carolina's "Sexual Responsibility Week." The local Greensboro paper got a hold of the news and looked up Taormino's bio, where they found 2 anal demonstration videos -- ooh, ah. Soon editorials were lamenting the taxpayer dollars lost bringing a "porn star" to campus (not to worry taxpayers of NC, Taormino's honorarium actually came out of the fees students pay every year for campus activities). Following the local paper's account, the UNC chancellor came out with a statement regretting Taormino's appearance and the school's failure to have "more thoroughly investigated Ms. Taormino." (Maybe it's a myth that universities are bastions of free thinking.) In a letter Taormino wrote in response, she mentioned that she had had similar issues in 2003 at Colby College in Maine, except that there, her topic was "queer sex." At Colby, it was conservative students, not locals, who objected to Taormino's advance press. But still, the students who thought she might be offensive attended her lecture and engaged in thoughtful discourse, rather than in shout fests and sloganeering, and Taormino praised the debate and "respectful disagreement" that ensued. Alas, tolerance may ever be an exclusive province of the young. Meanwhile at Chapel Hill's UNC (University of North Carolina), a teacher ended up on early retirement when a classroom demonstration he'd been using for years finally backfired. In a discussion of cultural norms, the professor challenged whether any student would strip naked in front of the class just for an A. For the first time in all the years the professor had used this demonstration, a student stood up and met the challenge right down to his willie. The flustered professor dismissed the class, but stories got out, not only around town but nationally -- Rush Lumbaugh even decried the professor in a half-informed rant. Though the professor apologized to the class and went directly to college president Dan Lunsford to ask for advice, the advice he most likely got (judging from things Lundsford has said in public)was take your retirement package and run. Funny that this is the same UNC, Chapel Hill, that 30 years ago staged one of the largest streaking events on record. Streaking as in naked students -- mostly guys, with a few women (who had guys assigned to watch out for them)-- running across campus in the moonlight. March 7, 1974, mostly to outdo a streak held by a rival college, about a thousand students streaked together across the UNC quad, buck naked as babies. Has the culture gotten more repressive about such things, or are young people truly getting more extreme? As we look to colleges at other western nations, we find that not only does nudity not seem to be the problem, but there seems to be a trend toward naked protesting -- who would have thought? On a cold February day in Berlin, students danced naked in the streets to protest intended financial cuts by the government. And in New Zealand, college students and other activists stripped and lied down outside the gates of the American ESCHELON surveillance station, Waihopai Spy Base. In fact, all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand, even Nepal, naked protesting is not just a student phemomenon. People are stripping off in support of causes as wide-ranging as circus animals to funding cuts. But that's a story for another day.
by Shayla Pandava The recent trend of Indian women resisting the dowry by calling off weddings really took off in May of last year when 21-year-old software engineer Nisha Sharma called off her wedding (relying on the new protective laws that few women before her had invoked). At that time, even with the advantages and mobility of an educated, middle classed woman, Nisha was vulnerable to the dowry system. It would not be uncommon for a family like Nisha's to pay up to $100,000 to find her a husband. In Nisha's case, and unbeknownst to her, her inlaws were extorting cars and appliances from her father all during the engagement (in spite of the fact that Nisha's degree could easily out-earn that of her teacher fiancé); the inlaws (mother and son) even asked for appliances for the groom's brother. They became more demanding, right up till the day of the wedding. Minutes before the ceremony, the inlaws corralled Nisha's father behind the scenes and demanded thousands of dollars in cash. The situation grew nasty. As Nisha's father tried to reason them out of their demands, they hit him and spat on him. Luckily for Nisha, her brother witnessed the whole incident and reported it to her. Cell phone in hand, Nisha not only called off the wedding, but she called the police, and the two in-laws went to jail. From this point on, Nisha has been somewhat of a national celebrity. As recently as Valentine's day, she was still receiving home appliances and other gifts from supporters around the country. If Nisha's trend continues, it may lead to a lot more jilted grooms making the news, not to mention a few less motorcycle sales in the wedding season.
by Shayla Pandava The "samba schools" are actually bands of neighborhood musicians (complete with neighborhood parade), since Rio is a place where your homies wear music like colors, and where year-round music lives on the streets. All through the year each neighborhood practices for this culminating event, Carnival, which sponsors a competition between the schools at the large stadium called the Sambodrome. At $1000 US per box seat and $235 US for the bleachers, this is no casual event. The cash prizes, the recognition, the rankings of the bands are all huge issues at stake for the neighborhoods. Not only is the music specialized and the costumes elaborate for each banda, but choreography is sometimes complex and technical, and it can include acrobats and professional performers. Some people have devoted their entire lives to their neighborhood's Carnival production year after year. Usually after a lifetime of dedication, these people march by special invitation in a group called Velha Guarda -- every school has a Velha Guarda. The judging of the neighborhood bands goes on for two days, and like other tropical fests (Reggae Sunsplash, for example) it runs through the night -- 9 p.m. - 6 a.m. That's the sort of place Rio becomes during Carnival. But you don't have to go broke to see the bands and enjoy the wildest festivities. The huge bands start setting up on the street in gatherings called Concentrations -- you can catch an early run there or wait and watch the bands march through the streets of Rio, each with its own route and starting point, depending on the neighborhood it comes from. The bands are followed by neighborhood floats (also put together over a year of planning and building) plus sometimes thousands of costumed followers -- and these are expensive, original, painstakingly designed, home-made costumes, beautiful on the eyes, but often topped by weighty headdresses, held together by painful wires, and very difficult to move around in. There are balls and parties; there's plenty of dancing in the streets, and the Cariocas, or local folk, are very touchy-feely, so bump and grind is a literal reality. Of course Carnival has an international reputation for attracting the loose, fast, and easy crowd, and for encouraging similar behavior in spectators, who get swept up in the "heat" of the moment. It's spring break for adults. But it is also known for romance and for getting couples together for the first time. This year, the organized festivities start on Friday February 20 with the crowning of King Momo and they end Tuesday (the same "Fat Tuesday" of Mardi Gras fame) February 24 with massive all-night balls across the city while the Sambodrome rumbles with final band competitions. Depending on the ball (and the expense you're willing to incur, plus some balls have mandatory costume and tux dress codes), you may meet all manner of celebrity or political, from the president of Brazil, to international movie stars, millionaires, and politicos. The streets, the beach, and the square at Ipanema (a favorite tourist destination) host one of the most active and prominent bands. Famous for exotic costumes, outrageous characters, and great friendly openness, the Ipanema band has already kicked off the street action (February 7), so people are partying there as you read this -- remember that it's summer in Rio. Just in: This year, the hot float is from the Grande Rio samba school (Grande Rio and its director Joaosinho Trinta have been stirring up controversy for years). With a theme of "Let's Wear the Little Shirt [read: condom], My Love," the float will be parading around with the sculpted counterparts of Adam and Eve in Kama Sutra postures. Apparently the Catholic Church had that familiar reaction, "I don't want to think about my fore-parents doing it." They came down on Trinta's float with warnings. Back in early January, Trinta said he wasn't going to change a thing. "Look, the sculptures are reproductions of the Kama Sutra," he said, "I'm not to blame if ancient art from India is in bad taste." The church reminded everyone that if Trinto didn't clean up his sculptures' acts, "we could enter with a court order to have the float banned from the parade." So Trinto's latest statement is "we're going to cover some things with leaves and vines and roots." Sounds like the ending of the Eden story; or is it West trumps East? However, many of Brazil's AID's organizations are behind Trinta's lovers, er, support Trinta's lovers. Given the fact that Trinta is a bit of a rebel, and that gravity and wind can do "inappropriate" things (just ask Marilyn), and given that leaves, vines and roots are all that stand -- OK rest -- between thousands of half-naked, gyrating parade followers and the terrifying sight of people making love, well, I'd be watching the float towards the end of the parade.
by Shayla Pandava So here are a few rules you can take with you to make sure your first swinger experience leaves you with that pleasant afterglow. ?Before you go to the party, discuss with your partner what you will and won't do, what you like and don't like, what you're hoping will happen versus what you're dreading might happen. Most negative first-time experiences come from a combination of the couple not knowing what to expect and their expecting to follow other couples' lead. ?Don't feel pressured. Swinger etiquette is very protective of people's right to say "No, thank-you." Feel free to exercise that right. As long as you're polite, no one will hold it against you. ?Make a "boundaries" list and stick to it. Know where your partner will and won't go. If something unexpected comes up and it's not on the "will do" list, try to get away and have a summit before responding. If you can't get away, let it go. Discuss it after the party and put it into the rule book for future reference. Don't feel you have to jump on every opportunity; a missed opportunity will enhance your desire to return -- which means the experience was a success. ?Maintain solidarity with your partner. Jealousy, uncertainty, discomfort, a couple can ward off these potential negatives by maintaining their solidarity, by "checking in" with their mate and putting the relationship at the center of all decisions. ?Be polite, by old-fashioned standards. Please, thank-you, no thank-you. Suggest rather than insist; decline with a smile rather than a scowl. ?Let having fun be your goal. ?And come fully prepared: have your sex goodies on hand in case you get lucky. Here's some terminology that might come up in conversation: Bi-curious - A male or female who is interested in trying sexual activities with someone of the same sex. Closed swinging - Couples are having sex in separate rooms of the same premises. Hard core swingers - Couple who live, eat, sleep swinging; also swingers who engage in hard core swinging (below). Hard core swinging - A swinger gathering or meeting is hard core when sex is expected. Hard swinging - Swinging where there is sexual partner switching, "hard swinging" is synonymous with swapping. Hedonism - From an involved Greek philosophy and way of life, it is basically the belief that the greatest good in life is to seek physical pleasure. Pleasure seeking. It can be a way of life. The Hedonism resort chain obviously co-opted this concept. They are quite opulent and favorite destinations of swingers, nudists, and fetishists. Matroom - A room set up for group sex. Also known as a group room. Meet for pleasure - This expression means, in swinging, that the encounter is not about friendship, but sex only. Menage a trios - From the French, this means three people set up a household. It includes sexual relations of course. So it really refers to a live-in situation, but it has been generalized quite a bit. On the site, it can often mean any "encounter" in which three people have sex. Naturists - An actual national organization of nudists, these are nudists with a philosophy, so it includes nature, going back to nature, and a lot of outdoor activities. Nudists -- People who like to be nude and do it as often as possible. They often remain nude in their homes, get together with other nudists for events, or have special places like camps or beaches where they can congregate (in the nude, of course). Open swinging - Two, plus couples have sex in the same room -- but not necessarily with each other. Orgy - Group sex, lots of people, lots of parts in lots of holes and no wallflowers allowed. Polyamory - Sexual relationships with more than one partner. Usually refers to emotional attachment and various agreements between the partners. Recreational Swinging - No-strings swinging -- swinging without attachments, friendships, relationships, emotional connections, etc. Roman (Roman Style, Roman Culture) - Sex by orgy. Social - In a swinger context you meet and greet, but don't have sex. Essentially a chance to meet other couples for future sexual encounters. Soft swinging - Couples get together and engage in sexual activity together, but they only have sex with their own partners -- no partner swapping; no mingling of bodies between couples. But a lot of watching does go on -- and possibly some touching -- a touchy matter best negotiated in advance. The hard line for soft swinging is no intercourse between non-mates. A wider definition says that any time a couple brings in a third party, they are swinging (threesomes). But in this case the third party would only watch or be watched. Swapping -- There is physical contact between one or both partner(s) of one couple and one or both partner(s) of another couple. Swinging - Refers to couples "playing" with other couples or with singles. It doesn't really qualify the degree of play. It tends to mean there is some sort of sex involved. In any case, the term doesn't really give you any clues as to who does what with whom. For some clue, they have invented the terms "hard swinging" and "soft swinging" and otherwise, you read between the lines. Threesome - A couple and a third party engage in some form of sexual activity. But it can be used to refer to any three people in a sexual encounter. Every situation is different, so it's important to clarify parameters. Triad - A three-way, ongoing relationship of mixed sexes, as opposed to a "threesome" which is usually a one-nighter just for sex. Utopian Swinging - Swinging as a life style, complete with philosophy, which is humanistic in nature.
by Shayla Pandava Number 1: Can you say communication? In one sense, any couple can swing. Just get out there and take the leap. But the stopper is that even when you’ve got a decent relationship going, swinging can bring up an untold morass of interpersonal issues. Not only does swinging give a couple lots more to communicate about, but it adds more people into the mix to communicate with. So if you're looking for a "smooth entry" into the swinging lifestyle, the place to start is establishing good communication habits. Talk it through thoroughly, over weeks (or months even) of careful deliberation, before acting. One good thing about all this communication is that a couple can often clear the air of any sticky issues that have been lurking in the shadows of their love life. While you and your partner are talking it over, you'll find some food for discussion below, based on what happy swingers and unhappy experimenters alike have to say about their experiences. Read and respond to the questions separately (some are multiple choices and some are write-ins). Then get together as a couple to compare and discuss your responses. The 1 - 10 scale questions can be of great use when you're planning limits and boundaries because they give you a clearer idea of which things are going to be compromises and which are worth compromising for. The first set of questions is under "why do I want to do this?" 1) If you're having sex with the swinging partner of the opposite sex, where do you want your partner to be? a. In there with you b. Doing their own thing with your partner's spouse c. Watching d. A mixture of all of these 2) How do you feel about a. having sex with a swinger of the opposite sex? b. Having sex with a swinger of the same sex? c. Your partner having sex with a swinger of the opposite sex (opposite to your partner)? d. Your partner having sex with a swinger of the same sex (same sex as your partner)? 3) On a scale from 1 - 10, how much of a turn-on would it be to watch: a. your partner getting it on with another couple b. your partner getting it on with a member of the opposite sex c. your partner getting it on with a member of the same sex 4) On a scale from 1 - 10, how much of a turn-on would it be to: a. have sex with another couple, both male and female b. have sex with a member of the opposite sex (other than your partner) c. have sex with a member of the same sex 5) On a scale from 1 - 10, if you knew it was one of your partner's hottest fantasies, how strongly would you be motivated to do the following: a. Have sex with a couple, both male and female b. have sex with a member of the opposite sex c. have sex with a member of the same sex When you and your partner go over your responses to the five questions above, there should be a nice mix between your turn-ons and your partner's. In other words, if there's a great imbalance and it starts to look as though the swinging activities benefit one partner way more than another, you'll need to do some serious talking. There are two things to consider: ?Your relationship might actually need some foundational work before you step into the swinging lifestyle. ?If you go into swinging with this lop-sided set of motivations, the road of your relationship could get bumpy rather quickly. Sometimes couples consider the swinging lifestyle when they feel like their relationship is sinking fast. Although anything's worth a try when a couple really wants to stay together, swinging probably shouldn't be the first thing on your list. It may force all sorts of seething resentments out into the open. And it brings other people into the fray. Swinging can easily bring up issues of jealousy even for the most seasoned swinging couple. And jealousy's not the most practical lifeline to throw a drowning relationship. The other area for concern is communication. The number one qualification for couples who want to swing is the ability to communicate honestly and candidly. And couples who are having troubles with their relationship are often couples who are, for whatever reason, no longer communicating well. Test your communication status: ?Did you have trouble filling in the answers on the above questions? ?Did you think, "oh, this is silly" or "s/he already knows all this?" ?When you and your partner got together to discuss your responses, were you negatively surprised or disappointed in some of your partner's answers? ?Were there some answers in your partner's responses that really took you by surprise, whether in a good way or a bad way? A yes to any of these means you may need help with communication. Swinging requires a game plan that sets boundaries both partners in a couple can be comfortable with. This means the couple must consider all angles and talk them through before they go off to play. There's nothing worse than being asked as a couple if you do certain things, only to hear your partner and yourself giving opposite answers. The more possibilities you discuss beforehand, the less likely this is to happen. Now if you passed that little test with flying colors, you can move on to the part about how swinging might be good for the relationship. Again, the best way to work with these questions would be to go into separate rooms, think them over carefully on your own, then answer truthfully. When you've completed all five, get back together, compare notes and discuss. The second set of questions is under "why do we want to do this?" 1) How well do we communicate? a. We tell each other everything and trust each other with everything. b. We can talk about most things, though there are certain sticky areas c. We don’t talk about a lot of things, but when there's something big or important, we're OK. d. We live separate lives and don't really talk much. But we're thinking that swinging will give us something mutually exciting to communicate about. 2) How healthy is our present sex life? a) It's almost too hot to handle. We're a regular passion pair. b) We have a pretty good sex life, especially when we get going. c) Not as frequent as it used to be, and we've got issues, but we can still have a good tumble. d) It's not really happening, at least in a very fulfilling way. 3) How experimental are we within our own sexual relationship? a) We've tried just about everything, or we'll try anything. b) He's more experimental; she's more reserved. c) She's more experimental; he's more reserved. d) We're stuck in a bit of a rut, but we're hoping some new faces and approaches will help us out of it. 4) How well do I know my partner's likes, fantasies, uncomfortable areas? a) I know just about every little detail. b) I know most of the important stuff -- I think. c) I know some things, but I'm sure there are a lot of things I don't know. d) I don't know much about my partner's fantasies, but hopefully that'll change. 5) How well does my partner know my likes, fantasies, uncomfortable areas? a) I'm not squeamish about my fantasies. S/he pretty much knows it all. b) Oh, there are a few things I'm keeping close to the vest. c) I've told my partner the things I think s/he can handle. There's quite a bit s/he doesn't know yet. d) I've never gotten around to telling my partner most of that stuff. The couples who are most likely to swing successfully are those in which both partners have answered #1 to all the questions above. Consistent #2 responses are also promising, but you may want to discuss the reasons you didn't choose #1 and decide if the issues that come up are important enough for you to work them out before taking them with you into the destabilizing presence of one or two new people. If your answers often go into the #3 range, you should probably work on strengthening these areas of the relationship before bringing in other people. And if you've got a lot of #4 responses, you could well be in a sinking relationship, hoping that swinging might keep you afloat. Just remember that jealousy, resentment, and pain may be the only products of swinging done without the proper foundation. No matter where your relationship rests now, you can still set your sites on swinging. But you will make life so much easier for yourselves if you secure the warm relationship, mutual trust, and open, honest communication before you set out on the swinging path. Let swinging be your goal or reward once you've established a relationship that's as rock solid as it can be. This way, you approach swinging under the optimum circumstances. Having said all this, it's often true that if you wait for everything to be perfect you never make a move. And some people enjoy a little risk or the excitement of feeling in over their heads, sorting things out as they go along. So take all this into account as you and your partner decide where to go from here. Good luck.
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