censorship

So maybe this isn't your typical Valentine's Day post. This is in reaction to the letter Gene Nichol addressed to the College of William and Mary community yesterday announcing his resignation as President of the college. It was a love letter, of the sort that comes at the end of a sudden and painful breakup. (Mimi  alerted me to it, and I found it published by the campus paper, DogStreetJournal.com, but it's widely Google-able. Here is the transcript and audio of a passionate statement he gave to supporters. Video is available here.)

Nichol resigned after being informed that his contract would not be renewed. The nonrenewal seems to be largely because of controversy regarding four important decisions he made.

This story about the FCC planning to fine ABC 1.4 million dollars over a shot of naked female buttocks on NYPD Blue back in 2003 is all over the net this morning.

The best comment I've seen about it so far is by Auguste at Pandagon. He writes:

...if I’m not mistaken, we’re still waiting for the first fine for an NYPD Blue male ass. And you couldn’t go five minutes in the first few seasons without seeing one of those.

I'm leaving the excretory inferences alone for now.

Technorati Tags: FCC, indecency, media

Photo of mannakin by Ordinary Guy on Flickr and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

It's been a while since I've posted here, and for my recent lack of desire to do much blogging, I must apologize. I've been feeling the urge creeping up, however. Whether that's a good or bad thing remains to be seen, I suppose. :)

Anyway,

As long as the subject of zoophilia is currently in the spotlight at UDoJ, let me bring up something that I've been pondering for several weeks. In France there is an AIDS awareness campaign out that plays on our societal aversion to the "Ickyness" (to borrow a phrase) of sexual contact with animals to make the point that sex can be dangerous.

Obviously the ads would never fly here in the United States. The modern fundamentalist religion movement has forcibly dragged the societal acceptance of rational discourse about sex and sexuality far enough into the closet to prevent the ads from ever seeing the light of day on billboards and bus stops. Visual depictions of sexuality on this level are verboten in public due to the appeasement by both our society in general and our government in particular of the medieval false-prudery of a group of people with no connection to reality.

Discussion continues, below the fold.

The New York Times reports this morning that Verizon has rejected a proposal by Naral Pro-Choice America to use its network for sending text messages to people who sign up for them. Other cell phone networks have accepted the proposal which allows subscribers to sign up to receive text message updates from NARAL.

According to a communication with Verizon that NARAL gave to the times, the company's policy is to reject proposals from groups that “promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its [Verizon's] discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.”

There are at least three very troubling pieces of this rationale.

Location(s)

 CINEKINK @ PIONEER: Liberty in Restraint

The Pioneer Theater and CineKink team up to present another evening of kinky movies, pizza and beer.

LIBERTY IN RESTRAINT

As an aspiring photographer, the clandestine world of BDSM, fetish fashion and alternative sex was a powerful attraction for Noel Graydon, whose recent death saddened the fetish community. This riveting documentary introduces the mentors, muses and masochists who inspired Noel's artistic endeavors over the years, giving a glimpse into a world of S/M enthusiasts who approach their play "like an advanced driving course in sex," one where the initiated take carnal license to extreme limits.  (Directed by Michael Ney, 2005, Australia, 90 minutes.)

Free pizza and beer reception follows for all ticket holders.

 More info and tickets are at http://www.cinekink.com/pioneer/

Hi All,

RG here...my blog was closed due to an "outing" at work....it was job or blog....

I am being brave...changed my name....the blog...and taking off when I left off....

Please come by and say hello....at http://www.therenegadegoddess.com

My blog is about sacred intimacy....mid life...marriage....bd/sm.....self discovery...it is funny....sexy.....it is my life...

best to all of you,

RG

On my WordPress blog a few weeks ago I wrote about Tory Bowen, Pamir Safi and the ruling made by a judge that Bowen could not use the word "rape" in her testimony against Safi. Bowen alleges that Safi raped her while she was asleep, and his first trial ended in a hung jury. His second trial was just about to begin, but...

According to the AP, via the New York Times:

Filed at 10:00 a.m. ET

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Before a jury was even seated, a judge declared a mistrial in a sex-assault case where he had barred the words ”rape” and ”victim.”

Judge Jeffre Cheuvront of Lancaster County District Court said protests and other publicity surrounding the rape case against Pamir Safi, 33, would have made it too difficult for jurors to ignore everything they heard before the trial, which had been expected to begin next week.

Two important sex-related editorials this morning:

First, the NYT comments on the need to pass the Safe Harbor For Exploited Youth act in New York. When NY passed its anti-trafficking legislation recently, it neglected to also pass this piece of very important legislation which would offer at least some protection to US citizens under the age of 18 who are being exploited for sex. As I've commented before, while I support most of the intentions of this legislation, there are problems, and these problems are pointed out by the editorial staff at the Times:

Yesterday's New York Times reported that two networks, FOX and CBS, refused to accept Trojan's new condom ad campaign because it explicitly mentions using the condoms to prevent pregnancy. FOX reportedly told Trojan that any ad campaign for contraception needed to put the focus on disease prevention. ABC reportedly told the company that the campaign was just inappropriate, even for their late night viewers.

Both networks ran Trojans previous campaign advertising condoms for HIV prevention.

Mark Crispin Miller, an NYU communications and media expert, is quoted in the Times article pointing out that lots of content on major networks is "salacious" and calles the decision by these two networks "hypocritical."

An email alert from Planned Parenthood Federation of America is more specific:

This afternoon, I was chatting online with Elizabeth, and somewhere between making lewd, ungentlemanly suggestions and parsing CSS code, I made a policy suggestion about the site. Put succinctly, it was this:

NO Freakin' Amazon links!