Here's what's on the menu over at this Beijing restaurant. I never thought items named "The Essence of the Golden Buddha" and "Look for the Treasure in the Desert Sand" could be so frightful..
[Link]
Posted by Juggz Monday, April 28, 2008 3:56pm
Gender Bending
I have been working on a story about a photo book about transsexual women, Divas of San Francisco by David Steinberg. It’s an amazingly intimate collection of portraits of transsexual women he got to know while hanging out at Divas, San Francisco’s premiere transsexual/transgender club. There is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to transsexuals, and a lot of fear, and a lot of hatred. Why? Is it because acknowledging transsexuals forces us to examine our own gender identity? I mean how do we know for sure what makes a man a man and a woman a woman? Is it our genitals? Is it hormones? Is it the way we look? Is it the way we behave? Or the way we feel?
I do know that when men act or appear feminine in any way, it is almost always seen in a negative light. In the bigger picture, it’s plainly obvious that values traditionally seen as feminine – nurturing, caring, loving, kindness - are extremely undervalued in our culture. Emotions are a bad thing to show – in business, in public, anywhere. Traditionally ‘male’ values and characteristics, like aggression, toughness, and being unemotional are constantly rewarded in our society.
So what to take from all of this? Well we could start by agreeing that the binary notion of gender that almost all us we were brought up needs to be re-examined. It’s too simplistic. And the sooner more people understand this, the better.
Posted by Matthew Monday, April 28, 2008 3:53pm
Do You have a Penis?
When I was 3 years old, I ran up to my grandfather, pointed to his groin and asked him if he had a penis. My grandfather – being Dutch - heard, “Grandpa, do you have a peanut?” To which he responded, “no child, I don’t have peanuts.” Like all good childhood stories, my parents have told me this story many times over. It’s been told to me so many times that, I believe, it has helped define who I am. Yes, I was very sexual from an early age but, more importantly, my parents talked about sex with a sense of respect and openness. I had a great childhood. My father was a liberal artist who wanted to break away from his repressed Calvinist upbringing and RAISE me to be open-minded, free from religious dogma and educated about sexuality. So, that’s how I came to learn the word penis at the age of 3 – I knew the correct names for our genitals.
My recent story – for SexTV - was about a really amazing Seattle cartoonist named Ellen Forney which will air Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.) When she was 4 or 5 she asked her mom if sex was fun. Her mom responded, “you betcha!” Like me, she was raised in the sexually-open 70’s. Sex is not just for procreation and it’s not just about your reproductive organs but it’s fun and social and you also need to be responsible about it! Forney feels that because she grew up with a really positive attitude about sexuality, it’s almost her duty to share that with others -- to be an ambassador of sexual openness and acceptance of others, ourselves and what our desires are. And so, I too want to thank my Dad and Mom for my upbringing and for teaching me what a penis was at a very early age. It may have started a life-long obsession (ah hem), but more importantly it’s allowed me to produce the kind of stories that push us to gain a greater understanding and tolerance for humanity in all its sexual diversity!
But what happened to Grandpa’s penis? Hmm...
Posted by Michelle Wednesday, April 23, 2008 1:35pm
Docs are Hot
Hot Docs, North America's largest documentary film festival opened yesterday, and is always greatly anticipated by many of us around here. It's a very indulgent week of immersing ourselves in alternate worlds and other ways of seeing. I was lucky enough to have the privilege of pre-screening a few selections, and was completely mesmerized by the eerie geminoids of Mechanical Love, the hauntingly fascinating history behind Stalags: Holocaust & Pornography in Israel and the widows featured in The Forgotten Woman. I'm really looking forward to seeing Second Skin, Emoticons, and Manufactured Landscapes, among others.
I also interviewed Montreal director Howard Goldberg last week about his Hot Docs entry, S&M: Short and Male - an entertaining but also eye-opening film about the difficulties short men face in the world. Growing up, Howard had no problems with the ladies - that is, until he wanted to date them. One of his first experiences occurred during an exchange program in France. He says:
"I met this girl, another English speaking girl from Montreal in France and I didn’t even realize that she was into me and we would walk around together and she would want us to have our arms around each other. And she just walked on the street, while I walked on the sidewalk. ‘Cause there’s a little difference, and that sort of evened things out. And you know that worked out really well until you know she felt that her life was at risk from being run over by cars and so…and then we had to go home."
Well. Good thing that didn’t work out. I can't imagine having that much of a hang-up about someone's relative height to me. Although according to this test I have a very strong bias against short men. I don't think I do, but tests don't lie, do they?
Posted by Emily Monday, April 21, 2008 3:16pm
Long Live My Bloody Valentine
Oh my good lord, My Bloody Valentine is back! They are touring Europe in the summer and releasing brand new material!
For those of you who aren't complete music nerds like me, My Bloody Valentine was a hugely influential band that peaked in the late 80's and early 90's . They perfected a sweeping, druggy, heavy yet ethereal sound that completely overwhelmed your senses. So many bands emulated them, but no one even came close to achieving the heady beauty of their best songs.
Why the hell am I writing about them in the sextv blog? Because for me MBV play the best make-out music on the planet. No doubt about it. But actually, you don't even have to make out - when you turn their CD "Loveless" really loud, it pretty much feels like you're having sex with an androgynous Indian deity…I'm not kidding. (It also doesn't hurt that at their prime, the group members themselves looked like angels - sort of above sex but embodying a purer form erotic energy.) What makes the band unique is that although the music is really heavy, it doesn't assume the macho posturing of most rock music - it definitely channels a more feminine energy (it helps that 2 of the members are women). Their songs never have huge guitar solos, dramatic choruses, or screaming (all that boring macho crap) - everything is soft, and rounded but heavy and powerful at the same time. Another way of putting it is - most rock music thrusts, pumps and tries to grab you - but MBV's music overwhelms you, draws you in, and stretches itself out until you can't take it anymore.
Is my description a bit rich? That's nothing. Here's how the great music writer Simon Reynolds describes their music:
"My Bloody Valentine songs are tantric mantras ( tantra being Zen sex magic, intercourse sustained at the brink of climax until a hallucinatory trance is induced), suffused with an apocalyptic, pre-orgasmic glow. This music is a smelting crucible of love in which every borderline and boundary (inside/outside, you/me, lover/beloved) is abolished. It's an incestuous inferno, a heavenly hell."
Posted by Pedro Monday, April 21, 2008 3:10pm
We Could Use More 70s Style Spider-Man
Check out this vintage issue of Spider-Man circa 1970s on boing boing. Spider-Man teamed up with Planned Parenthood to deliver this fun, accessible “safer-sex” guide geared towards tweens & teens in "Stan Lee presents: A Special Planet Parenthood Issue Of The Amazing Spider-Man". I can’t help but feel as though this kind of fun has been sucked out of sex education for today’s youth (that is if they’re getting a sex education at all), and I would love to see a modern incarnation of something similar. X-rated X-MEN anyone?
Posted by Mercedes Thursday, April 17, 2008 4:01pm
Male Strippers – theatrical, entertaining, hard-bodied and often hilarious
I took a trip down memory lane the other day when I came across a website for an all-male strip show that has become a huge success in Vegas. Thunder From Down Under features hard-bodied, Australian blokes who give it their all as they dance around half-naked to tunes like “YMCA” and "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy”.
Although I’ve been to Australia, this particular train of thoughts sent me back a decade to my first time at a male strip club. I felt excited and slightly bad-ass as I tagged along with my boss and co-worker after a slow retail shift, making our way to the Fox’s Den, aka “the Rippers.” I was seventeen (or 21, according to my fake ID) and the sight of numerous naked asses and neon thongs made me giggle a lot but I’d come prepared for that. What I didn’t expect was the highly theatrical performances – serious costumes, acrobatic dance moves and acting were involved in every act. They didn’t just come out with a stripper name and take it off - Jim Bob was dressed in full fireman gear, Venom was a B-boy who did back flips and then leaped down into the worm, humping his way across the stage. Watching the “police officer” swing around his “nightstick” was freaking hilarious and that’s what a lot of screaming women are paying good money for. If you’re a woman and you’re hot naked, you’ve pretty much got a captive male audience. Guys aren’t really sexy in the same way girls are so they need to feed into the fantasy aspect a little more. He can’t just strip down to nothing and call it a day – he’s got to have a hot body plus make you laugh and shriek like a schoolgirl.
Anyhow, if any friends decide to plan a Vegas bachelorette party in the future, I just might have to suggest the Aussies...
Posted by Layal Thursday, April 17, 2008 9:53am
MSNBC Mocks Pregnant Transgender Man
By now, we’ve all heard about Thomas Beatie. He’s the female-to-male transgender person who, having become pregnant, has been dubbed “the pregnant man”. It’s not shocking that the media has been all over this story. What is shocking, is how some media have treated the topic. The hosts of MSNBC’s popular ‘Morning Joe’ program featured the story in their “News You Can’t Use” segment, mocking Beatie and his wife, calling them, among other things, “disgusting”. It goes to show just how far we still need to go in educatiation on issues of transgenderism. Because, if comments like these had been directed to members of any other minority group, these hosts likely wouldn’t have kept their jobs.
Watch the clip:
Posted by Chris Monday, April 14, 2008 5:24pm
The 80s Are Back!
The 80s are back. In a big way. Big Hair. Big shoulder pads. Big EVERYTHING. If you ask me though, nothing captures the 80s better than “Night Moves”. Possibly the best late night television show ever produced. The premises was simple: a camera ,slinky, ceaselessly, roams the desolate chrome buildings and streets of an urban modern city (Toronto) looking signs of “life”, looking for “people”, perhaps even looking for “love”. On the soundtrack, ambient synthesizer jazz blasted soothing sounds from another planet. This was the show to make out to, to make up with. It was also the show that held the promise of another world that was full of promise and possibility: who knew what lurked around the corner.
Watch the clip:
Posted by Nicolas Friday, April 11, 2008 4:44pm
Crazy Parents Make Me Crazy!
It makes me insane when I hear about all these over-protective parents who try to safeguard their children from every possible danger. One coworker once told me about an incident he witnessed in the park where a father walked two inches behind his child wherever he went saying "Be careful! Watch out! Be careful!" every two seconds. Children have to learn to make mistakes, fall down, get hurt, even - god forbid - draw some blood in order to learn and not be afraid of their own shadow. I think some parents actually get off on the whole care-giver role and even *want* there to be something wrong with their children, just to give them an excuse to micromanage every aspect of their lives.
There was a recent study done about childhood food allergies. You hear a lot in the media about how food allergies are more common today, but this study shows the incidence rate has been unchanged for 20 years. The only thing that has gone up is the number of parents who *believe* their child has a food allergy. Out of 800 babies, only 7% had a food allergy. And by the time they were three years old, that number went down to 3% since many children outgrow their allergy. However, fully one-third of the parents believed their kids had a food allergy. They mistook a random rash, fever or vomit as being food-related and are now, no doubt, trying to get schools to ban PBJ sandwiches and refusing to allow their kids to eat anything at friend's parties. What is this need that some parents have to convince themselves that their child is "special", even to the point of convincing themselves of a fabricated health problem?
Posted by Bluj Tuesday, April 8, 2008 3:02am
More Menstrual Musings...
Got a chance to see Margaret Cho on her Beautiful tour the other night. Pretty hilarious stuff - she had one line about being attracted to butch lesbians, "y'know, the type who roll their own tampons" - which made me curious to find out if there was a community of "homemade tampon"-makers somewhere. Now there's loads of info by menstrual activists if you're into making some cool re-usable cloth menstrual pads, but I was really hoping to find some DIY crafter with a great tampon idea. Well I found one over at a "Frugal Moms" forum and it involves baby socks. If you're still interested here's the link.
A recent column by our favorite sex educator Cory Silverberg addresses the seemingly increasingly common – and entirely unfounded - anxiety around labia size.
Posted by Lady Elaine Fairchilde Monday, April 7, 2008 1:28pm
Racism in the American Psyche
Right now, in the blogosphere and media alike, there is a raging controversy over this month's - now historic - Vogue cover. The cover features a ferocious-looking LeBron James (NBA superstar) holding glamorously-dressed, waif-like supermodel Giselle Bundchen. He looks really big, scary and angry. His teeth are even exposed. She looks ecstatic and happy -- like she's just staggered out of a Hollywood party after drinking "one too many martinis, darling" and was swept up by a really big black man who was playing basketball. The camera - seemingly - has angered this man -- he's got what he wants and he's really, really protective. He even looks - dare I say - "savage." Shes strikes a pose for the camera like a stereotypical blonde Hollywood celebrity - in motion.
The whole image - taken by famed Hollywood photographer Annie Lebovitz - is shockingly racist. It fulfills all of the stereotypes of the Black man in America and is amazingly similar to the movie poster of King Kong and Fay Wray. Was this planned? Or does this image - and everything it represents - reside deeply in the American psyche?
We could argue that King Kong is a parable of racism and a metaphor for Hollywood's depiction of the Black man in America. As Author David Rosen writes in his essay King Kong Race, Sex and Rebellion. Click here to read the article from the book Jump Cut A Review of Contemporary Media.
It doesn't require too great an exercise of the imagination to perceive the element of race in KING KONG. Racist conceptions of blacks often depict them as subhuman, ape or monkey-like. And consider the plot of the film: Kong is forcibly taken from his jungle home, brought in chains to the United States, where he is put on stage as a freak entertainment attraction. He breaks his chains and goes on a rampage in the metropolis, until finally he is felled by the forces of law and order. The causative factor in his capture and his demise is his fatal attraction to blonde Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). As Denham says in the last words of the film, "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast." If we look at KING KONG in terms of a racial metaphor, "Beauty" turns out to be "the white woman." Aside from the sexual aspect implicit in the question of race, there's the more direct, and somewhat delirious, sexual imagery in the film. The ape often functions as a most appropriate anthropoid symbol of "lower," "animal" instincts. In this case we have a giant ape (literally a huge, hairy monster) and his unrestrained, headlong pursuit of a "blonde," that archetypical Hollywood sex-object, ending on top of the world's foremost phallic symbol.(1) The sexual theme touches on the standard racist myth of the black male's exaggerated sexual potency, and the complementary notion of his insatiable desire for white women.
I have to add this is only the third man, and the first African American man, to be on the cover of Vogue. What do you think?
Posted by Michelle Wednesday, April 2, 2008 12:31pm
People Power
One of the great things about working at Sextv is we get to meet lots of interesting people who lead interesting lives. Strong people, quirky people, smart people, you name it. People who are not scared to make a difference by speaking out about their lives. I once interviewed a Turkish Lesbian in her East Berlin apartment who was shot because she was open about her sexual orientation. I spent an a afternoon with a blues singer and former plus sized porn model who is currently battling cancer. I met the 'grandfather' of Danish porn (as he drank Tuborg after Tuborg at 9 o'clock in the morning in his office), a man who risked imprisonment to publish nude photos. I listened sadly to the story of a courageous transsexual woman who fled Africa for Canada out fear for her life, and was afraid she was about to be deported back by the government because she did sex work to make a living.
On my last trip to San Francisco, I met 3 drag queens and a team of volunteers who give up many a weeknight to promote safer sex and encourage members of the gay community to get regular HIV tests. As part of the STOP AIDS project, they go round to bars and clubs in a mobile RV, where HIV testing and counselling can be done on the spot. Instead of just putting the message out there, they are getting the message out there. It's serious and necessary work, but they make it fun and entertaining. They have to in order to be heard and make it impossible to ignore their message. The sight of two drag queens wrestling on the dance floor over a pile of condoms in an 18 and over gay and lesbian hip hop club is priceless. But it's something I will never forget. I admire how willing they are to put themselves out there in order to make a difference for their community. It's easy to talk about helping others, but not as easy to actually go out and do it.
Watch Sextv's upcoming shows to get their full story.
Posted by J.A.Rankin Tuesday, April 1, 2008 12:25pm
