Posts
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
100th Post: A Look Back (and Forward)
Well, here it's finally come . . . my 100th post! And I have no idea what I could write that would befit the occasion.Ever since I started this blog in March (gosh, has it only been nine months?), I've reviewed books and toys and porn, compiled various lists, informed you to nice offers, filled heads with countless dirty ditties, asked questions to which I have no answers,
I've strived to write posts that are not, as a creative writing teacher once described it, literary masturbation (his words: "It's fun and you like doing it, and people who love you might appreciate it, but everyone else just kind of thinks it's boring and maybe a little gross"). Although I've said before that I'd keep writing with or without an audience, the fact that people appear to be reading my blog means I want to offer something. Things could change, but I know that, at least in the near future, I won't be the kind of blog to break news (I'll leave that to AVN) or feature interviews and the like. Reposting links always feels like blatant stealing from other, better and more well-trafficked blogs. I don't want to say the obvious ("Oh, homophobia sucks." or "Censorship of free speech is a problem!"). I want, in other words, to offer something that can't be found elsewhere, uniquely me, and worth somebody's time. I don't know if I've done a good job of sticking to these principles, but it continues to be my goal.
Arianna Huffington was on The Daily Show a couple of nights ago, and she and Jon Stewart clashed [in a friendly manner, of course] about blogs, and I have to say that her words somewhat revitalized me for a new year and another round of a hundred blogs. Whether I'm blogging about cheese (oh, Arianna, I love cheese, too!), politics, or sex, I feel it's important and rewarding for me. I'm putting the video here so that you can see it (and also because I have a major girl crush on Arianna).
So look forward to more posts, hopefully a bit more in-depth and maybe even a bit more personal, as I'll have a bunch more time not taken up by school to pursue dating, sex, activism, and all that fun stuff. And maybe even delving into technical upgrades, yikes!
All You Will Get Is Fake Peen
It's not that I'm dying to see flaccid penises on the big screen, you understand. I like 'em fine enough, but 1) if it's a porn, I'm going to expect to see it get hard, 2) if it's a mainstream film, I'm going to expect it to be either very brief and thus unimportant or unnecessary and distracting from the plot, or 3) if I'm hunting for celebrity masturbatory fodder, more non-genital nudity would go further than the peen, which I can construct just fine in my mind. So following that logic, I really shouldn't be so upset at the fact that I won't be seeing Sean Penn or James Franco's penises in the upcoming movie "Milk".And yet I am, and I'll tell you why.
(On a side note, I am sooo excited about "Milk", the biopic about the first openly gay politican Harvey Milk. I have to admit it- I'm not that much a fan of Sean Penn. Others love him, tell me he's great, but I just don't care for his personality. But just watching the preview, I'm super-stoked, not only because it looks tremendously well-made, but because I really think it has the potential to rally people. Think about it- angry GLBTQ folks fresh off of being denied marriage + a moving portrayal of political activism + newly politically mobilized youth = a new revolution. Maybe? I don't know. But I'm still excited.)
Anyways, back on topic. When the two characters shimmy down to nothing, their penises are going to be fake prosthetics, as James Franco told Jimmy Kimmel. The question I have, though, and which doesn't seemed to be addressed in any of the other blogs posting the news, is: "Why?"
The last two big prosthetic penises I remember seeing on-screen belonged to Transamerica's Felicity Huffman and Boogie Night's Mark Walhberg- one for the actress who didn't have one herself, and one for the man needing to portray some hefty porno endowment. Both of these were exceptional cases, ones that I just don't think are present in the case of "Milk". I don't remember hearing any rumor that Milk or his lover were hung like horses, thereby requiring filmmakers to provide historical accuracy by means of plastic genitals.
Mind you, I'm not faulting Penn or Franco. Not only must it be incredibly difficult to expose yourself to millions of strangers, making yourself vulnerable through the removal of protective clothes, but it also opens up the wide and ridiculous arena of penis commentary that is sure to follow. Anybody not swinging an enormous club is immediately subject to intense discussion and criticism- all we have to do is look at what happened to poor Jude Law. One outside changing of clothes and boom! everybody is talking about how small the guy is, despite the fact that he appears more than average to moi. (And I've read countless articles in "defense" of Jude Law's penis- from claims of shrinkage in the pool, a hairy bush hiding and diminishing the goods, all the way to the hydraulics of his crouching stance). Dropping trow is a huge risk to one's career, and if I were an agent, I wouldn't be recommending my male talent to be flopping freely in front of cameras, either. And who wouldn't rather put on a fake and let it take all the heat? Penn and Franco, it turns out, are victims of our size-obsessed culture.
I'm just very tired of penis size being yakked about so much. Even after Enzyte has been sued for its false claims and lack of peer-reviewed evidence (even though c'mon, anybody who bought it was an idiot!), I still have to see Bob's damn smiling face while a cheery announcer tells me all about natural male enhancement. Guys are incredibly worried about their size and national male anxiety increases tenfold. But there's little men can do about penis size without dropping serious cash or risking lumpiness (eek!). It truly is the most ridiculous thing to worry about- it just ain't changing. Best learn to love your penis (why are women encouraged to love their bodies, but men rarely are?), learn to modify your lovemaking skills and tool box if your lady/man says size is causing you to lack, and stop stressing.
But unfortunately, watching "Milk" will make sweat break out on your forehead all over again. You might feel better, having heard Franco regale audiences with his humorous tale, as you remind yourself that they're fake, and even Sean Penn, who bedded the eminently beddable Madonna, worried about his own size. Or not. Nobody seems to be calling out the fake penises for what it says about our culture and our sexual anxieties, and I don't care if it's been talked about to death. Somebody should say it and put it on the table, at the very least.
Until then, though, expect a new trend- Judd Apatow be damned- of the dicks being larger than life, because all you're getting is fake peen.
Ah, well. Go and see "Milk" when it comes out- for the story, instead.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
If They Were Boys
What's up with all these girls singing hypothetical songs about being guys? It's not that I'm opposed to the gender-bending, but these songs tend to forget all the wonderful things about being boys, or the wonderful things they'd lose about being girls, and instead focus on- what else?- their menfolk cheating and being playas. I'm all for feminist anthems and calling the boys out and pointing out double standards, but I'd like to see us get past this a little bit. With Dar Williams' song being the only exception, the others paint guys as callous cheating jerks, and little more. It's rather insulting, really. Beyonce's new song is being played everywhere, getting stuck in my head (which I hate doubly because CIARA did it first!), and thus this post was born.* Ciara's "Like A Boy", which gets major props from Ciara's actually butching it up (if the whole superstar thing falls through, she could make a great drag king!) in the video (unfortunately not here, since they all disabled embedding):
* Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy", which is actually a cover of BC Jean's original. Once again, it's essentially man-bashing (not that it isn't true, though), and Jenton Lee calls it out with its female equivalent, If I Were A Girl.
* Fefe Dobson's "If I Was A Guy" (more of the guys sexin' and then being jerks):
* Dar Williams' "When I Was A Boy", which actually manages to be quite sweet and deep.
What do you guys think? Legitimate songs, or boring shit trying to pass for revolutionary feminist calling out of double standards?
Betrayal, or Becoming What I Hate
I give up all my ideals and morals to become seduced by the sweet siren of the Internet, after the jump.
I'm just old enough to be one of the transitional generation- the switch from CD's (and before that, cassette tapes- gasp!) to MP3's, DVD's to Netflix, and virtually all tangible media to some sort of digital form, transferred as information over the Internet. It's pretty dang cool.
And, of course, a bitch to police.
Producers work hard to add DRM restrictions to their media, as hackers work hard to get around them. Lawyers shut down Napster, as people everywhere plead the innocence of their downloading. Viacom pulls my beloved slash fanvideos from Youtube, as the fangirls go underground and trade them on Bongo. More music and videos are being uploaded, downloaded, traded and shared on the Web than ever before. Most of it is, of course, technically illegaly.
I have always been a firm believer in intellectual rights. If you make something, it belongs to you. Your work and energy went into its creation, and therefore you deserve just compensation for it. While friends were off talking about downloading songs, I was humming "Don't Download This Song" and proudly proclaiming that I bought all the media I consumed. "It's theft!" I chided. I was happy to support the musicians and filmmakers I loved, safely nestled in my clean conscience. While I generally gave leeway to reproductions like Youtube fanvideos that clearly stated the owners of the media (I have the "Fair Use" clause of copyright law nearly memorized), it was the downloading of something you hadn't bought that really got my goat.
And then I got tech-savvy.
It started off slowly- a legitimate download from a porn site membership was going too slow. One forum suggested Internet Download Manager, which was promptly installed and, sure enough, sped up the downloads quite remarkably. But unexpected was the new feature, a tiny clickable button appearing over every video and song player that I encountered, asking me if I'd like to download it with IDM. At first I ignored it, said "no" when the inevitable box would pop up, but then gave in out of curiosity. And it worked just fine enough. I tucked away that piece of information, downloaded a few things I really, truly loved, and let it be.
Fast-forward; now I'm working on another of my beloved Xtube videos, and I try again and again to import the stubborn video, which I legally bought and purchased from an online retailer, into my Windows Movie Maker. I consulted troubleshooting websites, and stumbled into the big wide world of DRM restrictions. There were tons of eager people sharing programs, discussing how to fight Windows, new updates, and all the time almost frantically proclaiming that this stuff was not meant to help illegal downloads, but rather to help people be able to, say, listen to their DRM-protected Itunes song on another music player, or transfer them to a CD so the could listen to them on stereo. Perhaps true, but it sure sounded like a "Thou doth protesth too much." sort of situation. But I did it, too- cracking the DRM code on my bought video and using it as I saw fit.
And then there was the whole question of file transfers. A fellow Crash Pad Series afficionado on Xtube vigorously agreed about the lack of queer porn and offered a trade of some of the missing links we had in our collection. And whaddya know, but I took it, with the help of Megaupload.com . . . and felt little guilt, surprising myself.
And then, while searching for some movie or another, impossible to find, Google offered in my search results one listed "Bittorrent". Up until then, I'd heard once or twice of this mysterious service, and while in Japan, got a firsthand taste of the wonders it could bring. Locked miserably with the few DVD's we had brought with us and the impossibility of renting any (due to lack of a TV with a DVD player and the 3-times region-switching rule of our laptops), a fellow exchange student searched around online and, two or three hours later, there it miraculously was. I tentatively asked about it, and got a confusing answer, something about sharing and seeds and leeches. I gave up, only to be so desperate for the movie that I downloaded the program and gave it a whirl. Though it took forever (at this point, I hadn't mastered said concept of seeds and leeches), it actually worked. I'd successfully downloaded a movie from the Internet.
I should have felt more remorse, more guilt . . . but all I felt- and sadly continue to feel- is mostly joy. I'm starting to think all my posturing before was just the result of not knowing how to access all this media-stealing technology. The minute I found out, I became just as much a thieving fan as the rest of them. Can we say 'hypocrisy'?
I try to somehow justify it in my mind- no, no, I only download movies I can't get at my local Blockbuster, you know, the rare and hard-to-find! Of cousre, it's all bull . . . the type of movie downloaded hardly matters, and even if it did, I'd probably be more guilty, since the big companies (Warner Bros., etc.) have the money to spare on their popular movies, and the little companies with their indie films struggle. There's always the old argument that illegal downloading doesn't really matter; real fans will go and attend the concerts, buy the DVD's and the fan merchandise. And perhaps that's true for some. But I'm not sure it's true for me. I keep on working to support the kind of music, films, and porn that I like by purchasing it, but the temptresses of Internet downloading are calling to me in the night. I'm running out of space on my hard drive.
And I've become what I hate- the glib young gal shrugging off the accusations that it's stealing, or, perhaps worse, knowing that it is and just not caring. I try and tell myself that I'm not alone- everybody does it. But that doesn't make it right, and my heart knows that.
And yet off again I go, hunting for more free stuff. :(
I'm just old enough to be one of the transitional generation- the switch from CD's (and before that, cassette tapes- gasp!) to MP3's, DVD's to Netflix, and virtually all tangible media to some sort of digital form, transferred as information over the Internet. It's pretty dang cool.
And, of course, a bitch to police.
Producers work hard to add DRM restrictions to their media, as hackers work hard to get around them. Lawyers shut down Napster, as people everywhere plead the innocence of their downloading. Viacom pulls my beloved slash fanvideos from Youtube, as the fangirls go underground and trade them on Bongo. More music and videos are being uploaded, downloaded, traded and shared on the Web than ever before. Most of it is, of course, technically illegaly.
I have always been a firm believer in intellectual rights. If you make something, it belongs to you. Your work and energy went into its creation, and therefore you deserve just compensation for it. While friends were off talking about downloading songs, I was humming "Don't Download This Song" and proudly proclaiming that I bought all the media I consumed. "It's theft!" I chided. I was happy to support the musicians and filmmakers I loved, safely nestled in my clean conscience. While I generally gave leeway to reproductions like Youtube fanvideos that clearly stated the owners of the media (I have the "Fair Use" clause of copyright law nearly memorized), it was the downloading of something you hadn't bought that really got my goat.
And then I got tech-savvy.
It started off slowly- a legitimate download from a porn site membership was going too slow. One forum suggested Internet Download Manager, which was promptly installed and, sure enough, sped up the downloads quite remarkably. But unexpected was the new feature, a tiny clickable button appearing over every video and song player that I encountered, asking me if I'd like to download it with IDM. At first I ignored it, said "no" when the inevitable box would pop up, but then gave in out of curiosity. And it worked just fine enough. I tucked away that piece of information, downloaded a few things I really, truly loved, and let it be.
Fast-forward; now I'm working on another of my beloved Xtube videos, and I try again and again to import the stubborn video, which I legally bought and purchased from an online retailer, into my Windows Movie Maker. I consulted troubleshooting websites, and stumbled into the big wide world of DRM restrictions. There were tons of eager people sharing programs, discussing how to fight Windows, new updates, and all the time almost frantically proclaiming that this stuff was not meant to help illegal downloads, but rather to help people be able to, say, listen to their DRM-protected Itunes song on another music player, or transfer them to a CD so the could listen to them on stereo. Perhaps true, but it sure sounded like a "Thou doth protesth too much." sort of situation. But I did it, too- cracking the DRM code on my bought video and using it as I saw fit.
And then there was the whole question of file transfers. A fellow Crash Pad Series afficionado on Xtube vigorously agreed about the lack of queer porn and offered a trade of some of the missing links we had in our collection. And whaddya know, but I took it, with the help of Megaupload.com . . . and felt little guilt, surprising myself.
And then, while searching for some movie or another, impossible to find, Google offered in my search results one listed "Bittorrent". Up until then, I'd heard once or twice of this mysterious service, and while in Japan, got a firsthand taste of the wonders it could bring. Locked miserably with the few DVD's we had brought with us and the impossibility of renting any (due to lack of a TV with a DVD player and the 3-times region-switching rule of our laptops), a fellow exchange student searched around online and, two or three hours later, there it miraculously was. I tentatively asked about it, and got a confusing answer, something about sharing and seeds and leeches. I gave up, only to be so desperate for the movie that I downloaded the program and gave it a whirl. Though it took forever (at this point, I hadn't mastered said concept of seeds and leeches), it actually worked. I'd successfully downloaded a movie from the Internet.
I should have felt more remorse, more guilt . . . but all I felt- and sadly continue to feel- is mostly joy. I'm starting to think all my posturing before was just the result of not knowing how to access all this media-stealing technology. The minute I found out, I became just as much a thieving fan as the rest of them. Can we say 'hypocrisy'?
I try to somehow justify it in my mind- no, no, I only download movies I can't get at my local Blockbuster, you know, the rare and hard-to-find! Of cousre, it's all bull . . . the type of movie downloaded hardly matters, and even if it did, I'd probably be more guilty, since the big companies (Warner Bros., etc.) have the money to spare on their popular movies, and the little companies with their indie films struggle. There's always the old argument that illegal downloading doesn't really matter; real fans will go and attend the concerts, buy the DVD's and the fan merchandise. And perhaps that's true for some. But I'm not sure it's true for me. I keep on working to support the kind of music, films, and porn that I like by purchasing it, but the temptresses of Internet downloading are calling to me in the night. I'm running out of space on my hard drive.
And I've become what I hate- the glib young gal shrugging off the accusations that it's stealing, or, perhaps worse, knowing that it is and just not caring. I try and tell myself that I'm not alone- everybody does it. But that doesn't make it right, and my heart knows that.
And yet off again I go, hunting for more free stuff. :(
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Behind The Scenes Of Queer Porn, 3 Views
This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.Thursday, November 13, 2008
Darkest Fantasies
I can always tell my life is getting too complicated and stressful when I find myself daydreaming about master/slave relationships. All of the sudden my fantasies turn more towards being subservient- and not only sexually. A peaceful wave sweeps through me to imagine handing over the reigns of my life to someone wise and all-powerful who I trusted, to be delivered from all obligations of thought and especially decisions. An abdication of having to live my life, really.
That's when I start watching "Secretary" yet again, but even more longingly, and wonder if I shouldn't be looking harder for a domme willing to take me up like this. God help me, I was browsing through Fetlife and came upon a beautiful dandy butch profile, and her invitation looking for housegirls and houseboys. The mere thought actually had me sighing wistfully. I like to cook and clean and keep a house- I could take so much joy out of serving in that way. And my domme- male or female or whatever- could plot out a perfect course for me. She'd come home from work and ask me about my classes; there's no chance of procrastination, and I read my chapters while curled up as her human footstool. Then there's the dinner I've cooked us- fragrant, exotic cuisine that's vegan (because, in my fantasy, she's incredibly healthy and helps me give up meat), perhaps perched at her side as she feeds me just the amount I should have. She's my exercise trainer, pushing me hard and regularly (because I wouldn't- and don't- do it on my own now). She puts me to bed early and wakes me up early. She has a strict schedule laid out for me. And she gives me incredible orgasms- opens me up to sensual pleasures of both the soft and the whacking, stinging, shocking kind. There are play parties on the weekends. Training that takes up all of my concentration and consumes me with a single minded drive whose accomplishment gives me incredible pleasure. When she comes home, the house is spotless and I am utterly content.
Except that I know this is all ridiculous.
I am not a sub, or at least, not in the way I described above. I'm a switch and I definitely don't think I have the stamina or the dedication to a 24/7 lifestyle either way. I'm headstrong and I'm sure that within far too short a timespan, I'd buck and chafe at the rules, feel resentment, and want to be in charge of my life again. The dynamic would wear thin, as it does with anyone who doesn't truly take pleasure out of being servile.
I know that it's stupid. And yet they are my fantasies, still faintly erotic but mostly oddly de-sexualized, where I become almost something of a child- without any of the pressures and emotional minefields that constitute adulthood. It's probably the most shameful and guilt-inducing fantasy I have, actually. Rape play, pissing, and incestual orgies fade in comparison to the cheek-flushing confession that I want someone else to take care of it all, to let me run away from my fears and anxieties, to live in some sort of simplified world that only skims the surface. To find freedom and relief in shackles, because if you have no choice, you feel no agony, and if you fail, someone else shares the burden of that failure with you.
It's poetic and pathetic, but whatever. It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm procrastinating on a paper due at 8:00. These are just thoughts running through my head. Sigh.
That's when I start watching "Secretary" yet again, but even more longingly, and wonder if I shouldn't be looking harder for a domme willing to take me up like this. God help me, I was browsing through Fetlife and came upon a beautiful dandy butch profile, and her invitation looking for housegirls and houseboys. The mere thought actually had me sighing wistfully. I like to cook and clean and keep a house- I could take so much joy out of serving in that way. And my domme- male or female or whatever- could plot out a perfect course for me. She'd come home from work and ask me about my classes; there's no chance of procrastination, and I read my chapters while curled up as her human footstool. Then there's the dinner I've cooked us- fragrant, exotic cuisine that's vegan (because, in my fantasy, she's incredibly healthy and helps me give up meat), perhaps perched at her side as she feeds me just the amount I should have. She's my exercise trainer, pushing me hard and regularly (because I wouldn't- and don't- do it on my own now). She puts me to bed early and wakes me up early. She has a strict schedule laid out for me. And she gives me incredible orgasms- opens me up to sensual pleasures of both the soft and the whacking, stinging, shocking kind. There are play parties on the weekends. Training that takes up all of my concentration and consumes me with a single minded drive whose accomplishment gives me incredible pleasure. When she comes home, the house is spotless and I am utterly content.
Except that I know this is all ridiculous.
I am not a sub, or at least, not in the way I described above. I'm a switch and I definitely don't think I have the stamina or the dedication to a 24/7 lifestyle either way. I'm headstrong and I'm sure that within far too short a timespan, I'd buck and chafe at the rules, feel resentment, and want to be in charge of my life again. The dynamic would wear thin, as it does with anyone who doesn't truly take pleasure out of being servile.
I know that it's stupid. And yet they are my fantasies, still faintly erotic but mostly oddly de-sexualized, where I become almost something of a child- without any of the pressures and emotional minefields that constitute adulthood. It's probably the most shameful and guilt-inducing fantasy I have, actually. Rape play, pissing, and incestual orgies fade in comparison to the cheek-flushing confession that I want someone else to take care of it all, to let me run away from my fears and anxieties, to live in some sort of simplified world that only skims the surface. To find freedom and relief in shackles, because if you have no choice, you feel no agony, and if you fail, someone else shares the burden of that failure with you.
It's poetic and pathetic, but whatever. It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm procrastinating on a paper due at 8:00. These are just thoughts running through my head. Sigh.
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