Fifty years ago today, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Grove Press’ right to distribute Lady Chatterley’s Lover — “A novel, no matter how much devoted to the act of sex can hardly add to the constant sexual prodding with which our environment assails us,” argued Grove’s lawyers — striking down obscenity laws [...]
A photo of a young couple sloppily making out pops onscreen. It’s gross, but not against the rules, so Axten punches a key to judge the image appropriate. Next up: a young woman in panties only, covering her breasts with her hands. “That’s pretty close,” Axten says, pondering the image. There’s nothing arbitrary about his [...]
Elizabeth Wood deftly shreds MSNBC for laying the blame for a teen woman’s suicide on “sexting”: I’m furious about the way this young woman’s story is being reported. Jesse Logan killed herself last July not because of the “dangers of sexting” but because of the dangers of sex stigma and “slut shaming.” She had sent [...]
Rebecca Fox and Rachel Sklar are next in Sexerati’s Sex @ SXSWi series — for their panel, “Why Professional Blogging is Bloodsport for Women.” Rebecca is the Managing Editor at Mediabistro; Rachel was the Founding Editor at The Huffington Post’s Eat the Press, and is now with the media consulting firm Abrams Research. First I [...]
From her column at American Prospect, some smart cold water to throw on the the latest technological bogeyman, the mobile phone: “The sexual dangers to youth, online or off, may be less than we think. Yet adults routinely conflate friendly sex play with hurtful online behavior…[e.g.] the San Francisco-based Family Violence Prevention Fund, which calls [...]
“The Attorneys General – mostly angry at me and other researchers – have spent considerable time trying to publicly reject the ISTTF report that was published last month,” writes danah boyd. That is, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force’s findings are being combated not with alternate findings, but with PR, like Connecticut State Attorney General [...]
Who’s going to defend prostitutes and sex offenders, right? No one — that’s what Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is banking on. Blumenthal was the one behind the united Attorneys General sabre-rattling that resulted in Craigslist creating a new set of regulations to govern their Erotic Services sections nationwide, that advocates for sex workers (myself [...]
A follow-up on China’s demands to Google and other search engines to block Chinese citizens access to web porn: PRI’s The World reports that Chinese activists believe this crackdown has far more to do with intimidating dissidents than going after porn. Not only is Google being held responsible for regulating material they do not control, [...]
ABC News notes that the 25th Anniversary of the Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend immediately precedes the inauguration of Barack Obama. “A spokeswoman for Obama said the president-elect would probably not attend any of the Leather Weekend events.” Probably. (via Gawker, photo via mmmmmbreed)
Even when a truly brutal case of child abuse & neglect captures the attention of legislators, and not just when the child is blonde and white, the outcry to “do something” most always falls short. Take the murder of 12 year old Brook Bennet of Vermont, allegedly killed by her own uncle, himself classified as [...]