Be heard on the issues that matter most to you!
Apparently, getting in the good graces of Allah in the next world by waging a holy war is nothing compared to a steady supply of hard-ons in this world:
The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.Four blue pills. Viagra.
"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.
Canada:
I highly recommend this episode of Grit TV for insights on the recent defeat for same-sex marriage rights in California via the passage of Proposition 8. The election results have produced a lot of anger and heat, and the conversation here manages to bring some light to what is a much more complex issue than is shown in most media or activism.
It's one of those odd twists that leaders of the Mormon Church probably never saw coming. Whenever opponents of Proposition 8, the ballot measure that eliminates the right of gays and lesbians to legally marry in California, protest outside a Mormon temple, they effectively stop church members from getting married, according Levi Jackman Foster, an ex-Mormon who lives in West Hollywood.
[...]"A temple is the only place (Mormons) can get married," Foster says, "if they want to get sealed to God."
A Mormon temple, in other words, plays a vital role in a religion that strongly promotes marriage among its members.
It's Election Day 2008 and I'm sitting in the Berkeley hills, looking across the Bay at San Francisco. My stomach is filled with butterflies edging, occasionally trying to edge itself into outright nausea at the thought of what's at stake today. It's not just the decision of Obama vs. McCain. That's deadly important, but here in California, there's a lot of very important stuff happening too. On the state level, they're fighting the battle over Proposition 8, which would undo the State Supreme Court's decision to make same-sex marriage legal, and Proposition 4, your standard parental-notification for abortion law. The airwaves have been filled with ads for and against, and the result of either is just impossible to forecast right now. And then, right across the Bay that's outside my window, there's Prop. K, a city ordinance that would decriminalize prostitution within the City and County of San Francisco.
On the eve of one of the most important elections in American history, historian and journalist Studs Terkel died last week. His work wasn't specifically geared toward sexuality, but his death is a loss for anyone who's ever felt like their story wasn't being told in the media. Terkel was best known for his oral histories like Working, The Good War, and Hard Times, which recorded the voices of ordinary Americans talking about the effects that major historical events had on their everyday lives. What I liked about him even more than his approach to history, though, was that he was irascible and unapologetic in his commitment to progressive politics.
Fetish Diva Midori, who's long been one of the smartest perverts on the scene, started a particularly interesting conversation on her Yahoo discussion group recently: are there fantasies that are, in themselves, unethical? Are there things that are such inherent breaches of morality that even if you never intend to act on them, that it's immoral even to fantasize about them?
From a sex-positive viewpoint, the immediate impulse is to say unambiguously, "NO!" The opposite answer has always been the hallmark of the puritans who police desire, and has destroyed more lives than can be counted. The idea that we have a right to our own desires as long as they either stay in our own heads or are acted out with consenting adults is the very core of the struggles for queer rights, for the acknowledgment of transgenderism, for the legitimacy of BDSM, and for the free manufacture and sale of pornography and sex toys of all kinds. It defines the difference between the people who see sexuality as normal and natural and those who see it as a dark, animal part of ourselves that we must transcend.
But I think that for most of us, no matter how expertly pervy and kinky and open-minded we are, the answer becomes more ambiguous once you start delving into particulars. For instance:
This item seems to have become so well-distributed since I saw it yesterday that it feels almost redundant to write it up, but for those of you who haven't seen it yet: Bitch magazine is in severe economic straits. They need to raise $40k by October 15 if they're going to put out the next issue of the magzine.
It's kind of stating the obvious that feminism right now would look a lot different if Bitch hadn't been around for the last twelve years. Ms. Magazine has, in my opinion, been irrelevant and out of touch for years, and even though I still sometimes find a certain bourgeois priggishness towards sexuality in some of their articles, Bitch in general has been indispensible in keeping a vital, accessible discussion about gender, politics, and pop culture going. It would be a shame to lose it. Read more here and donate here.
