By Rachel Sadon

Banned in the USA, despite our love of bang ... and burnt rubber

Oh TreeHugger. You’ve made my day.

Not only did the ever-relevant green blog send up the 10 Best Condom Ads Banned in the US, but they pointed out the very real societal value in effectively publicizing contraception. Intellect, wit, and raunch -- what more could you possibly ask for in a blog entry (or a Friday night)?

Author Brian Merchant points out that green living is about more than just composting and hybrid cars; overpopulation is straining the planet’s resources to an unsustainable level. Not only are Americans the world’s leading polluters, we also have an unusually high rate of unplanned pregnancies. And there are a lot of people that really loathe talking about contraception, much less see it advertised effectively.

It is unclear whether the ads were restricted by a regulatory agency or self-censored by marketers in the US (the article just says they were rejected for being “too sexually explicit”). Regardless, it’s pretty clear that our notoriously prudish compatriots would get more than a bit uppity at these exercises in tongue-in-cheek advertising.

Fortunately much of the rest of the world isn’t quite so unreasonable.

Continue reading "Those hilarious banned condom ads ..." »

Posted by SFBG at 12:46 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

The market for eco-friendly sex toys is growing, and in the past several years we've seen remarkable advances in the engineering of toys with ecology in mind. But while it's relatively easy to create eco-friendlier dildos, cock rings, condoms, or lubes, designing and manufacturing eco-friendlier vibrating toys is much more difficult -- as anything that vibrates is necessarily powered by some form of energy. The challenge is to create a toy that uses either the least amount of energy or the most sustainable type of energy possible, while still functioning just as well or better than a traditional battery-operated or plug-in alternative. Proudly, San Francisco is home to some of the hippest and youngest pioneers in the mechanics and design of innovative new sex toys.

Earlier this year, Bay Area engineering student Ani Niow created a steam-powered vibrator which, though perhaps not exactly eco-friendly, explored the mechanical possibilities of a different source of energy. Just this past week, we saw news of The Mean Green Fucking Machine, a water-powered toy designed by SFSU grad student Martin Cooper, who saw the design and market potential in creating a functional and aesthetically pleasing 'fucking machine' powered by alternative means.

Though Niow's Steampunk Vibe and Cooper's Mean Green Fucking Machine are both still in the most beta of beta stages, hopefully there will be many new developments in the alternative-energy-sex-toy sphere in the near future. And, kinky earthy types who want green vibes do have present options to choose from -- all of which your humble blogger has, at the very least, seen firsthand.

Battery-free Earth Angel Wind-Up Vibrator

The Earth Angel is made of 100% recycled materials and is actually hand-cranked to power. There is a tiny dial that pops out of the bottom of the vibrator, which the user cranks for 4 minutes to store 30 minutes of vibrating potential. The vibe is not at all versatile in terms of speeds and settings, and it looks chunky, plastic, and kind of ugly, but of all the alternatives on this list, Earth Angel is hands down the most eco-friendly. The main drawback is the $95 price which, to be honest, would deter purchase by all except the most dedicated eco-warriors.

Sola Vibe, a solar-powered g-spot vibrator

This cute vibrator has 3 speeds and at full power lasts up to 2.5 hours (if you're fine with having your vibrator sit on your windowsill to charge for 10 hours in direct sunlight). The design team had the foresight to create a g-spot vibrator, which adds to its versatility (can be used internally or externally). It's $70, which makes it one of the least expensive eco-friendlier vibrators on the market. For emergencies when solar-charging is not an option, the vibrator also comes with a secondary wall-charger.

Continue reading "Greener 'gasms: 5 eco-friendly sex toys" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:08 PM | | | Comments (3)

By Juliette Tang

Our post-Halloween, sugar-induced depression -- that vague feeling of existential disgust brought on by too much candy -- continues to rage on this hungover Monday. It arrives in the evil, saccharine form of Sugar Daddy Ken, the unfortunate new Ken doll via the lapidarists at Mattel.

According to Mattel, Sugar Daddy Ken (né "Sugar's Daddy Ken") is not the daddy of Sugar Chapeaux, the black Barbie, but of Sugar, the small white dog. And as Michelle Chidoni, spokeswoman for Mattel, told ABC most diplomatically, "At the end of the day, this collection is targeted toward adults. While the name of the doll does refer back to the dog, I think people are going to interpret it as they want to interpret it."

The only consolation toward feminism is the obvious fact of SDK's homosexuality. Crisp white pants paired with a bright green statement jacket themselves aren't enough to imply a same-sex preference, but add to the mix a small toy dog named Sugar who cants about on a bright pink leash and you're in the territory of grotesque, Bruno-style sexual stereotyping -- which is par for the course when it comes to ever responsible Mattel.

Sadly, SDK missed his opportunity to be immortalized in SF's Altered Babie Show, though of course there is always next year. If Mattel is unfazed by negative publicity and undeterred by the damage they will cause to fragile young psyches, SDK will be unleashed on stores in April of 2010.

And now, if you're allergic to the gross reinforcement of outworn gender stereotypes, don't read any further.

Continue reading "A "sugar" binge that makes you purge" »

Posted by SFBG at 04:23 PM | | | Comments (3)

By D. Scot Miller

Kink.com's Van Darkholme, Peter Acworth, and Princess Donna in the Armory boiler room, photographed by Pat Mazzera for our 2008 "Kink Dreams" cover story.

I've always been fascinated with the Kink.com building on 14th and Mission.

A former armory, and reproduction of a Moorish castle, it looks like a parochial school for wayward souls. Often I've wondered what goes on in this monolithic old-world structure, seeming more suitable for doling out justice than ecstasy. I checked out a few of Kink's family of Web sites and recommend all you surfers out there do the same. There's an aura around the building, the history, and what it now houses that epitomizes what San Francisco was, is, and can be that I'm behind with everything I've got.

Of course, there's BDSM with Hogtied.com, MenInPain.com, and TheTrainingofO.com. Woe unto the cynic within me who has become jaded by BDSM. Though the people are enjoying themselves and others, maybe too many trips to the old Power Exchange (and sub-station) and Folsom Street Fair in my youth have taken their toll.

The ones I find fascinating are WiredPussy.com, TSSeduction.com, FuckingMachines.com, and UltimateSurrender.com.

Continue reading "Kink glitches the matrix" »

Posted by SFBG at 03:47 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Sarah C. Jiménez

Glass Kandi emanates the raw, real sweetness of sex with high-end glass toys that, when used right, will last a lifetime. These days, it seems everywhere you look, happy-go-lucky, goody-two shoes sex-shops have been selling the “fun” in sex: things like cheery, animal-shaped silicone dildos and weird crap like bubblegum lube. One step into the classy boutique at Glass Kandi, however, makes the passionate nakedness of sex feel…well, sexy again.

Formerly known as Glass Dildo Me (until a neighborhood merchant complained about the name), the interior of the Tenderloin shop is a complete 180 from the gritty streets outside. Under elegant chandeliers, wondrous glass collectibles made for lovemaking adorn the shelves, literally sparkling. There are simple, elegant pieces. Light-up toys, floggers, glass plugs, double dildos, corkscrews, and kaleidoscope-like pieces. And even a line of food-related toys made to look like eggplants, bumpy cucumbers, fat jalapeños, and sausage links. Dildos come in various sizes fit for your body and in different textures; be it smooth, ribbed or bumpy. No two pieces -- being handmade and glass-blown -- are exactly the same. (Though most toys are priced between $100 and $200, with some as high as $449, some hover around the affordable $59 range.)

Continue reading "Glass Kandi: Another reason to replace the rabbit" »

Posted by SFBG at 12:42 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Juliette Tang

Saw this JolieLips lip enhancement kit on BoingBoing today (original article from MSNBC here). At first I imagined it to be a vulva pump until I realized it was for the other lips, the ones on the face, and then I wondered why anyone would go through all that trouble. Interested readers may purchase JolieLips from (where else) SkyMall, for a nominal sum of $27.95.

JolieLips, though trademarked, is not the first vacuum/pump device that turns regular lips into bruised and weird looking regular lips. An even more ludicrous product exists via Cyntha Rowland Beauty Systems called the "Luscious Lips pump," ($59.95) that resembles nothing so much as an erectile dysfunction pump for the mouth? Infomercial below, replete with music that is worse than you can imagine.

Worth thinking about for 5 seconds: Why??

Posted by SFBG at 06:25 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

A new mint called Linger is being marketed toward women who wish to improve the taste of their natural vaginal secretions. I first heard of Linger mints via Mother Jones, where writer Jen Philips revealed that Lingers have the same chemical composition of a sugary breath mint (and not even a good mint at that, but the cheap trade-show variety). Using a Linger, then, is essentially the equivalent of inserting a petri dish into the vaginal canal in terms of courting a yeast infection, though for women who wish to harvest kombucha by way of their genitalia these mints may have some utility.

Sadly, it's not inconceivable that a female shopper might purchase this product, despite its $7.99 price tag and associated health risks. As a woman, I know that we justify embarrassing purchases in name of feminine modesty (or feminine shame, depending on how you look at it) all the time. The fact that "fish" has become a culturally normalized adjective in reference to the vagina is disturbing enough.

Continue reading "Do you have to let it Linger?" »

Posted by Marke B. at 10:24 AM | | | Comments (1)

By Mistress Eve Minax, a professional dominatrix, sex educator, and food lover based in SF

If you’ve been following the last sexcipes, you now know how to prepare an eight hour pork spare rib meal with side of rubber gimp, and you also know how to make a hot sexy quicky with a burger and your lover.

Today’s sexcipe will focus on a meal that may not take any longer than the quicky but is so widely appreciated that it begs to be accompanied by a classic scenario from everybody’s favorite person and potential sex symbol, their Mommy. Now, I’m not talking about your actual mother. I’m talking about that feminine archetype who has held your hand when you were sick, spanked you when you peed the bed, and gave up the best cuts of meat to make sure you grow up big and strong. In other words, the maternal figure who cares for you, disciplines you, and also creates some of your initial sexual propensities in life. As a Mommy figure I find bringing my “children” into a primal state of no longer having to worry about who they are and what their place is in society gives me a great opportunity to contain them in that primal space while allowing their sexual fantasies to emerge.

Ingredients:

Truffle Steak

1 pound grass fed velvet steak (you may substitute skirt or bavette, but I prefer velvet)
2 cloves garlic
pinch of truffle salt
crushed black pepper
smidge of olive oil (truffle if you have it)
8-10 shitake mushrooms

Continue reading "Sexcipe: Mommy makes steak" »

Posted by SFBG at 10:59 AM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

I do most of my writing in cafes, because any attempt to write at home generally results in watching online videos and taking naps. Given some of the things I write about, the process of writing in public often induces a distracting level of self-consciousness that borders on fear. There's always the mild worry that what I'm working on is 'inappropriate' for public consumption, a worry that's as tiresome as it is shaming. As I furtively write on my laptop, I invent implausible scenarios that almost always result in my being exposed and then humiliated in some convoluted way. What if I'm writing at a cafe and someones child, lurking near my table, sees the engorged human genitalia trumpeting like something 3-D and malevolent from the light of my Google image search? Would I be escorted out by management for being some kind of sex offender? In front of all of Ritual? Why must they sell those tiny cupcakes that attract kids in the first place???

It is not always possible to detect a child's presence. They are small, like bacteria.

My answer came in the form of Wicked Grounds, which opened two weeks ago in SOMA (289 8th St, at Folsom) -- as luck would have it, literally in my backyard. Situated barely a block away from kink havens Madame S, Stormy Leather, and the Citadel, this new, 18+ kinky coffee shop fits into the neighborhood foliage and is, bewilderingly, the only 'adult' cafe in our city.

The quaint and welcoming Wicked Grounds serves pastries, Ritual Coffee, and Red Blossom Tea in a quiet space that is, like many cafes in our city, long, skinny, and adorned with the work of local artists. However, unlike every other cafe in our city, all the artwork in the cafe features naked people. Finally, a place where I can work in peace!

Continue reading "I smell coffee and sex" »

Posted by SFBG at 02:52 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

Depeche Mode - Hole To Feed

Having been a latchkey child in the '90s with ready access to that extinct and sorely missed era of MTV when VJs and actual music video programming were my after-school treat, the dawning of my sexual awakening was catalyzed in part by videos like "Closer" by NIN, "Erotica" by Madonna, and, more disturbingly, "Wicked Games," by Chris Isaak. Watching minute particles of sand lodge themselves between the crevices of Helena Christensen's sun-kissed bosoms (or, creepily, Chris Isaak's briary armpits) resulted in, to this day, an irrational fear of any combination of pompadour and wifebeater.

It's odd that watching Eric Wareheim's music video for "Hole to Feed," by Depeche Mode, ushers me back, a la little madeleine, to my days on the old plaid couch in front of the wood-paneled TV, silently praying that I'd see something shocking before my parents came home. More specifically, it makes me acutely aware of that sedentary, vaguely molested sensation I experienced when I witnessed Marilyn Manson ride a pig in "Sweet Dreams" for the first time, my eyes wide with fascination and horror and my mouth agape with Fruit-by-the-Foot.

Continue reading "Feeding holes with Depeche Mode" »

Posted by SFBG at 12:26 PM | | | Comments (5)

By D. Scot Miller

EROTIC COMICS 2: A GRAPHIC HISTORY FROM THE LIBERATED '70S TO THE INTERNET
Tim Pilcher
(Abrams ComicArts)

The lord works in mysterious ways.

My impassioned plea to the publishers of Best Erotic Comics 2009 to please expand their tasty tome inspired something in the ether, and my request for a bigger erotic comic collection as come to me in the form of Erotic Comics 2: A Graphic History from the Liberated '70s to the Internet.

Tim Pilcher, author of Erotic Comics: A Graphic History from Tijuana Bibles to Underground Comix has pulled together a comprehensive and illuminating retrospective on the genre, its relevance, and how it has both mirrored and transformed our sexuality.

Barry Blair's hot ambi-nymphs

From the pre-code days of Wally Wood's Weird Sex Fantasy and the tantalizing soft-core of the early days of Heavy Metal Magazine, Pilcher brings both sub-genres and individual artists into focus, creating a time-line that not only examines the art, but the supporters and detractors of pornography, free-speech, and free-love.
Alan Moore -- the genius behind Watchmen, V is for Vendetta, and (along with partner Melinda Gebbie) the $75 slip-covered piece of indulgent psycho-sexual sensuousness that is The Lost Girls -- writes a pro-porn polemic worthy of The New Yorker (or this fine blog) that catapults us into high-weirdness and beyond.

Moore and Gebbie's Blake-meets-Darger sextravaganza, The Lost Girls

Like many of you out there, for the longest time I thought adult comics were reserved for 40-year-old virgins.

Continue reading "Spank-tastic ambiguous nymphs butter the muffin" »

Posted by SFBG at 11:27 AM | | | Comments (0)

By D. Scot Miller

ANATOMY OF AN ADULT FILM
Sunset Thomas and R. Richard
(World Audience Inc.)

Finally! A book I can trash! I can't tell you how long I've waited for something so bad to fall into my grimy little hands. Deep down inside, all critics are sadists. Everyone knows it. Everyone loves it. But it's rare to find a work that is so masochistic in its conception that it is the equivalent to the animal kingdom's definition of "presenting."

Well, Thomas and her ghosty cowriter "R" present big-time with Anatomy An Adult Film and I, for one, am thrilled! As I salivate over this, rubbing my hands together like the best cartoon villain, I wonder where to begin. It's all just so tempting!

Let's begin with the writing. Oh god, it's so bad! If Thomas has any eloquence in her speech, "R" is quick to squelch it with the fervor of a fan-boy whose read too many "Penthouse Confessions."

Continue reading "Lame "Anatomy"" »

Posted by SFBG at 04:53 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Justin Hall. Check out his awesome guide to erotic comics in this week's Sex Issue here. Below is another extra special one-hander.

HARRY AND DICKLESS TOM
Brad Rader
(self-published)
www.flamingartist.com

This erotic graphic novel is both brilliant and completely unique. I certainly don’t know of any other gay porn comic that features such huge, well-drawn, splash pages of vaginas.

Two homophobic truckers are crossing the country screwing fags in truck stops and then beating them up, when the Goddess decides to teach them a lesson. Tom wakes up one morning with his dick replaced by a vagina, and his relationship with his buddy Harry, himself, his family, and the rest of the world is changed instantly. His new pussy humanizes him and when he finally gets his dick back, he finally knows how to really use it.

Harry and Dickless Tom is a very personal book by an extremely talented cartoonist. “My sole erotic release [when I was young],” writes Rader, “was my jerk-off sketchbooks. I would draw in them for hours, making love to the pages with pen and ink, pouring my angst, lust and longing into images I hoped and feared the world would someday see, and that I might somehow realize.” Rader has worked on everything from Batman to King of the Hill, and he puts his considerable illustration abilities to use with this book, drawing each section of it in the style of a different famous cartoonist. It starts off with an homage to Herge’s Tin Tin and winds up imitating Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates. In every style, though, Rader makes sure that his odd cast of characters stay sexy, especially Tom, the balding, bespectacled, daddy muscle bear with a pussy. Check it out at Raders’ site www.flamingartist.com.

Posted by SFBG at 01:02 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Justin Hall. Check out his awesome guide to erotic comics in this week's Sex Issue here. Below is an extra special one-hander.

ALI BABA Y LOS 40 MARICONES
"Ali Baba and the Forty Faggots"
Nazario
(La Culpula, 1993)

Nazario, the godfather of underground Spanish comics and a dissident artist during the dark times of Franco, is best known for Anarcoma, his deadly, cock-loving, tranny detective. But while her adventures are truly breathtaking in their bizarre, violent and sexy extremes, Ali Baba is the work of a more mature and sophisticated cartoonist. Like similar underground, gay, pervert artists John Waters and Almodovar, the early works are exciting, but the later stories are better made.

Ali Baba is a series of interlocking stories about the goings-on at the Ali Baba bar and the three apartments above it, all filled with outrageous maricones based on the denizens of Nazario’s home Barcelona. The artwork is wonderful, incredibly detailed and textured but cartoony all the same. Unlike most erotic cartoonists who draw the same man of their dreams over and over, Nazario is clearly interested in many flavors of menfolk, from young twinks to hairy daddies to chubby fems to square-jawed hunks, all of them having good, hot sex. Sex in his hands is primal, captivating and uncontrollable, and his characters dive right in.

Unfortunately, Nazario’s comics are hard to come by in English. There have been a few attempts at translations, but all of them are well out of print. He’s still kept in circulation by Spanish comics publisher La Cupula, however, so check out their collection at www.lacupula.com.

Posted by SFBG at 02:45 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Mistress Eve Minax, a professional dominatrix, sex educator, and food lover based in SF. Read her previous sexcipe here.

This recipe ("The Quickie") was inspired by a quick spanking, bondage and fucking session the other night. Quick and easy, you still have time to process, read, or watch a movie, happily sated in sex and food.

Burger with almond butter served on salad of mesclun greens, strawberries, avocado, and spicy citrus melon

Ingredients:
1 lb Grass fed ground beef
salt, (high quality or smoked)
fresh ground pepper
garlic clove
Raw almond butter
Mesclun greens
Half pint strawberries
Avocado
1 fresh melon
two lemons
ground cayenne pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Method:
Chop the garlic clove and combine it with the ground with the salt and pepper and set aside.

Grab your subject and lift her skirt or drop his trousers and put them across your lap for a lengthy, fine, slow, well delivered spanking, (take classes if you want to know more!). When their ass is warm and rosy and both of you are turned on, have them go to the bed, strip, and lay like an X. Bind the arms and feet nice and wide and outstretched, add a blindfold. Tell them something dirty to think about.

Return to kitchen, (within eye and ear shot).

Continue reading "Sexcipe: No-carb burger salad with spanking" »

Posted by SFBG at 04:23 PM | | | Comments (1)

By D. Scot Miller

BEST EROTIC COMICS 2009
Last Gasp, 1995
Edited by Greta Christina

The cover art by Junko Mizuno alone makes Last Gasp's Best Erotic Comics 2009 worth the price of admission. His gothic-Sanrio-sex-kittens getting into all kinds of weird mischief, involving sleeping-spray and whips among other things, is just one example in this well-pieced and well-paced collection.

There's something for everyone in this one, but I have my favorites:

Cephelapod Products weighs in with an homage to the bawdy "just for larfs" period of the 1940s and '50s, and returns with the look and feel of the 60's underground "Zapp" comic days that is so dead-on that I feel like I'm in the back of the record shop.

Toshios Saeki reaches even further back to early Japanese erotica to do that sexy double-entendre thing with the word "fantasy." Saeki does the best tentacles in the biz, and he creates passionate embraces that make even the most supernatural seem like the most natural.

A long-time favorite of mine, Christy C. Road, brings "Reclaim Yourself: Revolution On A Battery Operated Phallus," which it actually is. Whether it's a bicycle or a buttplug, Road's lines, color and emotion feel like liberation to me. Delicious, shameless sex is part of the revolution, better believe it. Even/especially when you're by yourself.

Belasco's Brothers of New Essex

In that same vein, Belasco (best known for his "Brothers Of New Essex" graphic novel) opens "Th'Floodgates," the most poignant, concious, and healing story in the book. Comic book sex can be about sex as a healing energy of succor and an expression of love too. Who knew?

But it ain't all love-taps in here. Best Erotic Comics 2009 is rough, soft, frightening, and soothing with each turn of the page. Whips, guns, pixies, paronoia, and perverison inter-mingle here, if the thunder don't get you, the lightning will. Are these truly the best erotic comics 2009 had to offer? Hardly. With manga and web-based comics being published everyday, it's time for Last Gasp to consider making 2010's edition much, much bigger.

Posted by SFBG at 11:35 AM | | | Comments (1)

By D. Scot Miller

WE DID PORN: MEMOIRS AND DRAWINGS
(Tin House Books)
by Zak Smith

I admit it. I was fully expecting to hate Zak Smith's book about his alt-porn experiences. Yes I was. Trendoid motherfucker gonna tell me about porno? What's this artsty-fartsy, probably spoiled, uber-talented white boy artist got to say to me about fucking somebody?

Turns out, quite a bit.

I have to say that after the first chapter of this engrossing tome, Zak Smith had changed my life forever. He made me overcome my fear and predjudice of hipsters - something that Miranda July and Dave Eggers could not do - and listen to his tale of making alt-porn and living gonzo in alt-porn world. Not the best writer in the world, Smith makes up for his Hunter Thompson parroting with honesty and constant lucidity.

Zak at work as "Zak Sabbath," alt-porn star

"The most hideous thing about pornography," he says early on, "is that it works. On you."

Continue reading "'We Did Porn': Zak Smith gets sticky" »

Posted by SFBG at 10:46 AM | | | Comments (1)

By Marke B.

After facing an unholy buttload of opposition to relocate in its same neighborhood, storied (and I mean storied) sex club legend Power Exchange quietly reopened this past weekend at 34 Mason near downtown. We've yet to experience the joys of the new locale --- will there still be a doctor's office play room? Nurse! -- but I'm sure we'll have lots to report. ... Check out the Power Exchange Web site for more details.

Oh, rudimentary Power Exchange Web site, of course we agree!

Posted by SFBG at 03:01 PM | | | Comments (1)

By D. Scot Miller

FURVERTS
By Michael Cogliantry
(Chronicle Books, $12.95)

Yeah. OK. I was one of those people who thought that Bugs Bunny looked hot in drag. There was something about the way his bucked teeth looked with lipstick, the way his large, mascara eyes gave a come hither look that gave me a tingle. And when his disguise would inevitably come off, often exposing his cotton-tail to Elmer Fudd, my pre-adolescent self would get a goose.

Like so many of my generation, we had no idea what we were feeling or how it would translate in adulthood. For me, large eyes and buck-teeth grab my attention. Others became Furverts.

A Furvert is turned on by furry costumes - Bugs Bunny's tail - and Michael Cogliantry has created a board book, originally titled The Furry Kama Sutra, that captures these furry lovers in flagrante delicto in various mundane settings: A bear blows a bunny in the living room, a lion boffs a rooster in the garage.

"Birds do it, bees do it, but no one does it like furries do it."

Chronicle Books took a chance on this one. Formatting it as a board book, looking so much like the kind babies chew on, and filling it with woodland creatures in compromising positions touches on a disquieting element, though it's difficult to explain just why. My copy came with a plastic cover sporting a sticker saying, "Paws off! Not suitable for kids," and yet it, like the fur-play chronicled, appeals to the kid in you. Ick.

All-in-all, this is harmless and quirky little curio with no explicit photos. The poses themselves range from silly to sappy and the settings, from the depressing no-tel motels to the press-board basement, make the furry rutters all the more hilarious.

Posted by SFBG at 11:41 AM | | | Comments (1)

By D. Scot Miller

Unless Greyhound grows wings, I'll never be a member of the mile-high club. For those that don't know, the mile-high club sports members who have gotten a little somethin'-somethin' 30,000 feet in air. Membership is just one trip to that chemical-smelling cubicle that most airlines call bathrooms. Cleis Press editor Rachel Kramer Bussel puts a much better spin on the prospect in her anthology The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories. One-flight stands, kinky passengers, fantasy stewards, and cozy couples commingle when free to move about the cabin.

The standout piece for me is Thomas S. Roche's, "When Your Girlfriend Wears A Very Short Skirt." I've been seeing Roche's name in anthologies for years and often found his work not daring enough for my taste. Imagine my surprise when the word "cunt" was just sitting there! I never use that word. Not much of a fan of it either - I prefer pussy - but Roche dropping it in the middle of his piece was like a wolf showing off his teeth for the first time. Maybe he'd used it before, but this time I was shocked, appalled, and impressed.

Alison Tyler flexes her prodigious erotic muscle in "Planes, Trains, and Banana Seat Bicycles." "I could tell he was groaning, but I couldn't hear a sound besides the roar of the plane" Her title character says, "And I realized I don't ever want total quiet. I don't need darkness. Lights at the end of the runway are among my favorite sights." Talk about jazzy analogies! I can dig it.

Now for the bumpy landing: Erotic writing, second only to sports writing, can easily turn into a cliche-ridden morass. "His manly arms," "her dripping pussy" -- in many ways erotic lit hasn't made it past Victorian tumescence and tribadism. This is not to say that many of the passages in this fun book avoid this hazard, just that the ones that don't fizzle the sizzle for shizzle. Mix it up more next time.

Posted by SFBG at 06:10 PM | | | Comments (1)

By D. Scot Miller

I clocked the jizz from a friend of yours named Vanessa Bet
She said u told her a fantasy that got her all wet
Something about a little box with a mirror and a tongue inside
What she told me then got me so hot/I knew that we could slide

My patron saint for all things freaky, Prince, wrote this lyric nearly 20 years ago (Can you believe it? Neither can I), who knew the manner of prophecy The Glyph was laying down all those years ago. Well, I've seen the future and it will be... the Makerbot.

MakerBot Industries creates open source robot kits that transform your digital designs into physical objects automatically. It functions like a 3D printer that can turn all of your 2D fantasies into stimulating simulacra with the push of a button. The MakerBot is kind of old news, but they just released the Cupcake CNC, a little, hackable, almost portable version of its more sturdy models.

Of course, sex is NOT what the pencil-pushers who made the gadget had in mind, at least not conspicuously, but like with their Internet and their camera phones, this little marvel will probably train on our orifices and stay there. The mind just reels, and other parts plump, to the possible applications. Send your "friend" a copy of your cock, your favorite toy, or just an outright dare. Polyurethane playmates, instant real-dolls, downloaded and waiting for your next to your desk, a box with a mirror and a tongue inside...

The press for this thing says "make anything you can imagine", and they will post your creations on their site. I'm wondering if any of the readers of this blog can make something they just refuse to post. Probably.

Posted by SFBG at 12:47 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

In what is surely a sign of the decline of capitalism, Babes and Billionaires is now open for your consumption. This previously invitation-only site -- one described by its creators as "where the honeys meet the money" -- purportedly connects "billionaires" with "babes" (skepticism and scare quotes mandatory) and promises to be a cut above similar sites like Millionaire Match, Sugar Daddy for Me, Seeking Millionaire, and Seeking Arrangement, though how remains unclear, particularly in the area of general douche-baggery.

During a brief a phone conversation, Lawrence Miller (CFO) and Arnold Zelonka (VP of Marketing/Creative Director) used terms like "A-List" and "garbage" to differentiate between people, called their taste in female beauty "incredibly discerning," and admitted to believing Babes and Billionaires to be "a very clever name".

According to Miller, who is the only person I've ever spoken to who used the term "A-List" three times in the span of less than a minute: "The original genesis was contacts throughout the United States, mostly A-List people. We invited them to join what was then a private club and a place for them to meet. Professionally, I was in the entertainment business for many years and I've had a huge database of A-List people. And my Director of Marketing was in the advertising business and also had a large database of A-List people." When I asked him who he considered A-List, he responded, "People in the entertainment industry, and the rich and beautiful. We are gearing our marketing to those that qualify."

Though he said, "I wouldn't be so presumptuous to say I'm the ultimate judge of beauty," he did admit to having "incredibly discerning taste" in female beauty. As for the men? How rich are they? "Most of the men are worth in excess of 10 million dollars." The pairing between beautiful women and rich men works well for an online medium, Zelonka argued, because "People with money don't want to mingle with the garbage to meet people to date. A lot of them are shy and busy." And, if members of the site are anything to go by, some of them (actually, all of them) are creepy and talk like Smoove B from The Onion.

Posted by SFBG at 11:41 AM | | | Comments (14)

By D. Scot Miller

A note from D., our new SEX SF contributor: "This is my first installment on the SFBG's Sex SF blog. I'm pretty sure that anyone who knows me half-suspected that I was a freak. Ease your suspicions friends, I am."

I just finished reading Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex. by David Henry Sterry and R.J. Martin, Jr. (Soft Skull Press), a servicable account of sex-work and sex-play from professional providers of all genders, classes and orientations.

There are many standout pieces, Carol Queen's "Blowjob City," a poem by Anonymous called "Hermaphrodite," and my dear friend Sadie Lune's piece "Envelopes" come to the forefront for me. Installments by stalwart symbols like Nina Hartley, Xaviera Hollander and Georgina Spelvin give a comforting credibility to the collection. Sterry, no stranger to sex writing himself -- his first book "Chicken" lived on the NYT bestsellers list -- proves to be a more than competent editor and curator and for those who want to know what it's like in "The Life," this anthology is a good place to start.

With that said, the last thing you want in your sex, and I believe that I'm speaking for just about everyone, is dryness. Sex is wet, slippery, and messy, at least the sex I like, and sometimes trying to explain our sexual selves can be an arid and depressing affair. Many of the entries in this anthology, unfortunatley, fall into that category. There's just too much "blow-by-blow" and not enough "blow". Many of the entries are simply not sexy when it is clear that they are trying to be. And with all the talk of "sex-positive empowerment", its Mochalove out of Oakland, saying, "The next time I hear some rich white bitch tell me how great being a ho is, I'm gonna smack 'em upside they righteous head," that I most connected with and whose story I most wanted to hear.

Posted by SFBG at 08:33 AM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

Yesterday saw an interesting piece in the New York Times on the slow disappearance of plot-based porn flicks in favor of films comprised solely of sex scenes, without any narrative structure, that can easily be broken up and presented online. According to the Times, the DVD sales and rental industry was $3.62 billion in 2006 (a number estimated by Paul Fishbein, president of the AVN Media Network) but has fallen as much as 50% since then. Rather than solely filming feature length, plot-based movies, like Pirates XXX, which was released in 2005, studios are focusing more attention on filming vignettes instead -- series of sex scenes that occasionally share a theme, like "Girls 'n Glasses".

While some are alarmed at the changes afoot in the industry, it's a fact that studios are focusing less and less attention on making feature DVDs and that interest is only going to decrease from here. In this NYT video, Steven Hirsch, chief executive of Vivid Entertainment, states that while it wasn't that many years ago that all of Vivid's income was dependent on DVD sales, now, less than half of their income is generated from DVDs, largely due to the nature of the internet. Vivid now offers an online membership that users can subscribe to, that allows them to view video clips and photos simply by logging in.

Written on the body: Raging Stallion's Ink Storm offers a different definition of "porn script"

I sent an email to Ben Leon, a director at Raging Stallion Studios, a major gay porn studio located in San Francisco, and asked for his perspective on these changing trends. The NYT article doesn't discuss gay porn, which has historically been much less attached to the plot-paradigm than straight porn. [You couldn't fit much more on those old Super8 one-reelers! -Ed.]

He made an interesting point linking the new web model of porn with the uptick of interest in fetish material, which the NYT article didn't really touch on either. Said Leon, "I also think that porn is changing as the culture changes. A new trend in porn is a heavy swing toward fetish material. This trend is not that different than the wider trend toward making internet content. The new fetish stuff and the internet sites are marketed to a very specific audience. This specialization is both a widening of the market but also a contraction in certain ways. Like mass media-as it becomes more pervasive it also becomes much more targeted. People are now able to find the information (or porn) they want filtered through whatever bias or glass they choose."

Continue reading "All sex, no plot: The new porn?" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:57 PM | | | Comments (0)

Ethan Imboden, center. Photo from the blog of Rose Apodaca.

The vibrator, in its evolution, has come a long, long way. The first vibrators, which debuted in the late 19th century, look nothing like sex toys as we know them today and everything like like the kind of power tools you'd find in the basement lair of a serial killer. They also came with sexy names like the "Shelton Deluxe-Wayne Vibrator" and "Dr. Ocara's Pulsocon," though more appropriate names for these toys run along the lines of the "Pleasure of Pain" and "Use me if you don't want a clitoris by the time we're through". As the decades progressed, vibrator manufacturers continued to struggle with design. The design of 1950s-era vibrators were not a great improvement on the vibrators of the 1890s, as evidenced by this toaster on wheels-made-of-hot-rollers known as the Chic Glorifier.

Though utilitarian vibrators have existed for over a century, it hasn't been until recently that sex toy manufacturers have started realizing that while having an orgasm is sexy, having an orgasm with a something that looks like a power drill is not. Having sex with a person is generally more satisfying if you are attracted to the person in the first place, so why can't the same philosophy be applied to the act of having sex with a toy?

So along came Jimmyjane. Founded by Ethan Imboden in 2003, Jimmyjane is a local company headquartered in Potrero Hill that sells high design vibrators, with price points starting from around $100 to an almost inconceivable $2,750 for the Little Gold Eternity, a gold vibrator adorned in diamonds and etched with hearts that looks like something you'd find on rich cougar's bedside table (if you were lucky). An expensive vibrator isn't for everyone (I myself cannot fathom spending over $100 on anything that doesn't involve a week's worth of groceries or a plane ticket), but for those who want an aesthetically pleasing vibrator and have the money to spend, Jimmyjane is a nice little oasis in a world of scary vibrators. Even for this skinflint blogger, spending over a hundred dollars on Jimmyjane's beautifully designed Form 6 is not beyond the realm of possible futures.

Ethan sat down with the SFBG to talk about Jimmyjane and the changing future of vibrators.

SFBG: You went to Johns Hopkins and got your degree in electrical engineering, and then you went to Pratt for industrial design. So it actually really makes sense that you’re doing what you’re doing. But do you recall the first moments, in your history as a designer and engineer, when you realized you wanted to make vibrators?
EI: Yes absolutely. It’s etched indelibly in my memory. I was visiting a sex toy trade show with a potential client. That was really the first time I really entered into the world of sex toys and accessories. I was immediately struck by the fact that design had not touched the category and there was such an opportunity to take the same discipline in my background and apply them here. I had some experience with sex toys, but not a whole lot to be honest. And I had no idea how much experience my peers had with these types of products, but when I got back that’s all anyonen wanted to talk about.

SFBG: Looking at your vibes, there’s a perceptible aesthetic. It’s minimal, it’s modern, and definitely ‘less than more’ when it comes to ornament. But what, in your own words, is Jimmyjane's design philosophy?

Continue reading "Screw design: Jimmyjane's Ethan Imboden works the vibe" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:41 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

Just in time for your big gay Pride weekend, the talented artists at the HomoChic collective have launched their and improved site, now complete with an online store where you can get your very own designer poppers top. Created by SF's Leo Herrera and NYC artisan Blue Bayer, these simultaneously classy and slutty swine-themed poppers tops are available in 14K gold plate or sterling silver, and come with a little chain so that you can conveniently wear your poppers around your neck (the coke necklace from Cruel Intentions is so ten years ago). Says Leo Herrera, co-founder of HomoChic, ""This piece of gay history is the best thing to happen to messy sex and sweaty dance floors since the pump lube bottle & the hanky code." Herrera sat down with the SFBG to talk about the history of HomoChic, the innocent fun of poppers, and what it's like to be a "chubby chasing feeder twink".

SFBG: Can you describe, in your words, what HomoChic is? (And it's absolutely gorgeous gorgeous, by the way). From my perspective, HomoChic is a little bit of everything, from photography to video to design to music to writing to fashion. From a creator's viewpoint, what are you going for with the site?

LH: HomoChic.com is an artist collective, production house, and as of June 09, an online store for prints and gay artifacts. We produce events, films, costumes and images with a focus on gay anthropology and history. We are also planning on representing artists and performers through online promotion and commerce.

SFBG: How did HomoChic take off?

LH: HomoChic has taken off because of our focus on gay history and repackaging it in a way that isn't too focused on looking toward the past (i.e. AIDS activism, "traditional" Pride) to shape ways of taking the Gay Movement to the future. At the same time, we are finding the resources and opportunities to create more of our own projects, so it's something gay men of all ages can identify with. HomoChic started with myself, Jacob Sperber (co-founder of HoneySoundSystem) and my gay brother Allan producing art pieces that revolved around events and vice versa. Whether it is an after-party for an art show, or a film piece produced specifically to be a trailer for a nightlife event. The notion of Chic has always been associated with being a homo. As a lot of us, especially the younger generation, assimilate, we become too focused on being part of mainstream culture and forget that for a long time, the industries have looked to us to show them what's cool and sellable, not the other way around. Think Madonna's Vogue, or disco for example.

SFBG: How were you inspired to make your lovely pig-topped poppers bottles?

Continue reading "Designer drugs: HomoChic unleashes piggy poppers" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:13 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Juliette Tang

It goes without saying that we tend to take our Internet porn for granted.

Naturally, we are so inundated with porn in our pop up ads, our spam folders, and our Google searches (an unfiltered image search for something as innocent as "cucumber" will get you porn on the first page), it becomes the accepted standard that porn will be an immutable fact that as long as the Internet exists and that we will be entitled to free, or at least accessible, cyberporn until the end days. Unless we're in the business of making internet porn ourselves, we don't often think of the business or entrepreneurial aspects involved behind the scenes, or the planning and development it takes to get even the most basic of adult websites off the ground. But adult entertainment, as with any other profession, is a part of an industry (albeit one that is on the fringe of the mainstream) that relies on a complicated network of people who work together and interact as a part of a larger market. And, like all professions, adult entertainment is privy to a phenomenon known as the "Expo".

What industry, these days, doesn't have its own expo? Every day, in hotel conference rooms all over the United States, from coast to coast, from New York to LA, from La Quinta to the Four Seasons, professionals gather to drink coffee and mini sodas to meet one another and discuss things like customer conversion and marketing strategies. Usually these expos are a staid and boring affair, with keynote speeches by tedious suit-types with topics like "Putting Service Above Self". We see them all the time in San Francisco. After the open bar closes down, some of the more adventurous professionals will make their way up from the Renaissance Hotel in Fremont to the city, just to go to Ruby Skye.

At least in the adult entertainment industry, expos provide some entertainment value.

Slightly exposed at the 2008 Cybernet Expo

If the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo is adult entertainment's version of Web 2.0, then the upcoming Cybernet Expo is its version of the TechCrunch 50.

Continue reading "Cybernet Expo 2009 gets deep down in it" »

Posted by Marke B. at 05:55 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Juliette Tang

It started as I was digging around for an old Janus magazine for a friend of mine (sigh, I swear).

Janus -- the classiest and cheesiest British spanking magazine from the 1970s, and still being campily produced to this day -- reads like the Vice Magazine of softcore spanking. There's something that is, strangely and inconceivably, almost high-brow about this periodical, with its modestly made-up and un-enhanced models who look like they stepped out of a Richard Kern photo. The lo-fi, soft-focused, 35mm photos and the intentionally retro design of the layout and typeface -- plus the fact that the magazine's design philosophy has not changed in the last three decades -- imbue the publication with a toothsome genuineness noticeably absent in its more explicit modern day counterparts.

The publication also makes no secret of its aspirations toward a "higher standard." Janus also runs a popular sex shop in Soho, London, that boasts a storefront more fitting of a Prada boutique than a sex shop, and which in the past has participated in an homage to Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, two French poets who had a famously violent affair in the 1870s.

It was by pure accident that, through searching for Janus magazine, I discovered QSM, an online BDSM bookstore, its warehouse located here in San Francisco, woman-owned and -run since 1989.

Continue reading "QSM offers BDSM adventure of a different sort" »

Posted by SFBG at 02:17 PM | | | Comments (2)

By Molly Freedenberg

One little two little three little kitten toys...

I'll be the first to admit that I could've given the G-Twist more of a chance. I was lazy. Stuck in my ways. And, in the words of the poet Sir Mix-A-Lot, it was so big...so black.

And then came Hello Kitty [ed note: available at Good Vibrations]. The slender pink vibrator with the rounded kitty-cat head and big, big eyes, packaged in a cute rectangular box covered in Japanese writing. Intimidating it was certainly not. But there was something else in the way... oh yeah!... it's a sex toy based on a character popular with 10-year-old girls (and, to be fair, the adults they grow up to be).

Not that I wasn't charmed. I was. And a little relieved. The small vibe, in all its smooth pastel adorable-ness, could've passed as an oversized pen - and, in fact, it sat on my desk - next to my Post-Its and concert stubs and Sharpies and empty coffee cups - for a few days before I took it to my bedroom. This vibe was much more my speed - no pun intended.

But still. I wondered if I'd be able to use such a thing on my lady parts. Could I get past the associations with kids? The images it conjured of Japanese vending machines dispensing young girls' used panties?

Turns out, I could. I could get past it. And under it. And off on it.

Continue reading "Products: Well Hello, Kitty" »

Posted by Molly Freedenberg at 01:22 PM | | | Comments (4)

"Come support SF's Lusty Lady Theater, the one and only unionized worker-owned peep-show co-op, and their saucy presence in SF Pride 2009! Strippers, dancers, performance, DJ Durt, dykes, debauchery, raffle, panty and date auction, lapdances, bodyshots, and you...."

Lusty Lady Pride Float Benefit Party
Sat/13, 9pm
Lexington Club
3464 19th St, SF
www.lexingtonclub.com

Posted by SFBG at 02:34 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

From
Steamfuck.me

Since 2004, we've had the solar powered vibrator. In 1999, someone took out a patent on a water-powered vibrating device (and, dude-who-holds-that-patent, we're still waiting to see what you've got). There are vibrators activated by cell phones, by iPods, vibrators with rechargeable batteries. There are even, for horny hippies, wind-up vibrators powered by your wrist. It's no surprise, in this age of alternatively-powered vibrators, we're returning once again to the age of steam.

This stainless steel steam-powered vibe was created by Ani Niow, a Bay Area engineering student. Her vibrator is doubtless beautiful, incorporating aspects of vibrators of yore. The first vibrator ever invented was actually steam-powered, and known as the "Manipulator" (that pun has got to be intentional), appeared in 1870 in England. The Manipulator more or less looked like this:

Niow's steampunk vibe is much, much more streamlined and elegant than the closet-sized Manipulator, with a brass adapter for a steam hose and an insertable body. Inside the engine housing is a tiny Tesla turbine powered by compressed air.

The fact that this vibe looks like a medieval torture device surely works in its favor. While not the safest or most environmentally sound vibrator, this vibe has clean-lined aesthetics and the self-explanatory fetish element going for it. Niow's toy has been blowing up the blogosphere these past few weeks, and her idea and execution are so novel that I can see why. There is definitely a market for some at-home machine fucking for the ladies and machine fucking for the dudes.

Continue reading "Steampunk vibrator a blast from the past" »

Posted by SFBG at 05:04 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

They say you have until next Tuesday to hire a hooker on Craigslist, but everyone knows that probably won’t be the case. Craigslist is shutting down its "Erotic $ervices" section after increasing pressure from law enforcement following the arrest of Philip Markoff, the “Craigslist Killer,” but because state officials and law enforcement want a scapegoat instead of a solution, the only people who end up benefiting from this situation are... the people at Craigslist? What?

Craigslist is shutting down erotic services to start the new “adult services” listing, which their blog states: “will be opened for postings by legal adult service providers," whatever that means. Craigslist will review each posting before it goes on the site to ensure compliance with Craigslist guidelines, whatever those are. [Where do I apply!?! -- Ed.] The murky details of Craigslist’s new adult services category are confusing, vague, and actually head-scratchingly bizarre.

Continue reading "What? Only six days left to hire a hooker on Craigslist?" »

Posted by SFBG at 12:31 PM | | |

By Juliette Tang

Why Kindle when you can burn?

Sometimes, it really is sexier to close your legs and open a book. Especially in the case of good erotic fiction. While porn gives you a balls-in-the-face visual overload, the pleasures of erotica are subtler, more cerebral. A book of erotica is something you can take with you into the bathtub with a glass of wine, candles lit, and jazz on the radio. Or, put the dust jacket of Ulysses on your copy of Hot-N-Naughty: Extreme Erotica and you're totally safe to read while MUNI-ing to work in the morning.

Always known as a bookish city, San Francisco does not disappoint bibliophiles whose tastes lean toward the more sensational. Who knew there were so many different words for "penis"? Like "bald-headed butler"? This Friday (May 8, 6:30PM) at the Good Vibrations on Polk (1620 Polk Street), treat yourself to a free session of "Erotica and Wine" with a special reading by writer John Thursday. More of an "erotic philosopher," Thursday has introduced some truly necessary terms to our sexual lexicon, like zen penis, dong perch, and shirt cocking.

Not an example of "shirt cocking"

If you've got the urge for some sizzling stories but can't make it out to Good Vibes on Friday, check out some of these progressive San Francisco bookstores for some literary hardcore!

Continue reading "Highbrow smut: local literary porno for book lovers" »

Posted by SFBG at 05:59 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Molly Freedenberg

The G Twist in unintimidating Target/K-Mart blue...

I am a lazy masturbator. I blame it on the fact that I started so young (and so long before I connected masturbation to sexuality) that I've gotten too attached to, and too good at, my dependable 25-year-old method (indirect clitoral stimulation with my hand, on my stomach, legs crossed). If I can bring myself to four or five orgasms in less than 10 minutes this way, why bother with toys, lingerie, and setting the mood -- in short, why make it more work?

The answer is, of course, that there is more to sex -- both alone and with a partner (or several) -- than simple orgasm. And there's more than one kind of orgasm. As soon as I became sexually active with other people, I seemed to understand this intuitively. (It helped that many of my high school-era partners didn't, and though I wasn't quite sure what was missing, I knew it was a lot). But when I'm feeling solo and sexy, I tend towards efficient familiarity.

Which is why it took me nearly two weeks to test out my new G Twist from Good Vibrations, the highly regarded silicon vibrator with a ridged shaft, curved head, and base made to stimulate the clitoris. Or it could've been that the giant, matte black model with the realistic-looking head and spiraling shaft (sort of like a severed alien dick) was a bit intimidating, especially compared to its slim, pink, shiny plastic predecessor.

Continue reading "Products: Giving G Twist a go" »

Posted by Molly Freedenberg at 08:04 PM | | | Comments (3)

By Molly Freedenberg

Fling, a G-spotter made from sustainable harvested exotic wood by Nob Essence.

Think environmentalism is sexy? Does Earth Day rev your biodiesel-fueled engine? Well, both just got a whole lot steamier, thanks to Good Vibrations.

Everyone’s favorite sex resource and retailer has just launched a new Ecorotic collection, featuring toys made for more sustainable sex. (Wonder how, exactly, sex could not be sustainable? Check out our Green City column and this blog post on the topic.) The legendary company’s new line offers all-natural and organic products (sans phthalates), durable toys that will stay out of the landfill longer, and recharcheable vibrators. And even better? For some of you, they'll all be free.

Continue reading "Good Vibes goes green ... and free!" »

Posted by Molly Freedenberg at 11:27 AM | | | Comments (0)

By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex columns here. Email your questions to Andrea: andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

"Oprah begs for mercy" sounds so much like the title of one of the S/M fantasy stories you can read online that I just couldn't resist it, but honestly, read this:

Dr. Berman: ... and this is a little holster that the guy can wear so this goes around his penis.

Oprah: Oh, please.

Dr. Berman: Yeah. Around his penis for hands-free clitoral stimulation during intercourse.

Oprah: OK. You have just crossed the line with me.

Dr. Berman: OK. Are you ready?

Oprah: No, you have crossed the line with me. I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Dr. Berman: All right, look. Here is the penis. (Makes shadow-puppet gesture.)

Oprah: I swear. I'm not ready for it. I'm not ready. I'm not ready for it. No. I am not ready for it. Let's move on.

The doctor is Laura Berman of the Berman Institute in Los Angeles, where, between Laura's therapy and her urologist sister Jennifer's research, anyone female with enough money and not enough orgasms can get her bits seen to. They do excellent work. I'd be tempted to go myself out of curiosity if I lived more southerly and had more money and less doctor-phobia. Doesn't Laura, usually so nice, seem to be getting something of a kick out of playing "torture the media mogul" there, though?

Funny, actually, since these appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show have sold gazillions of her vibrators and carried Berman's name, credentials, and well-tended features with them into bed with viewers nationwide and further.

These are mostly not the penis-mounted marital aides the doctor is describing above, but the Berman Center brand's workhorse, the Aphrodite. It's a Magic Wand-type rechargeable nicknamed "the sure thing." How sure a thing is it, and is there anything about it that should automatically win the trust of an audience presumably tuning in more for makeovers, lifestyle tips, and celebrity gossip than for "Look, Oprah, here's the penis ... ?"

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Oprah begs for mercy" »

Posted by SFBG at 09:49 PM | | | Comments (0)

We've had several requests to repost Ariel Soto's Good Vibes interview/lapdancing class video slideshow that was previously on our front page. Enjoy!

Posted by SFBG at 03:13 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

There's a big, hard, and urgent reason to use eco-friendly sex toys, and it's not just to get off. If you haven't ever thought about what's harboring in the industrial-grade plastic of that favorite vibrator, now is probably a good time to start doing some research.

The majority of vibrators, dildos, sex beads, and blow-up dolls contain plastic, and most of that plastic is treated with one or more phthalates, a family of chemical compounds that is added to plastics in order to make them more flexible. If you use a bendable dildo that feels soft of pliable to the touch, it most likely contains a giant load, if you will, of phthalates. Because the presence of phthalates have been known to induce birth defects, change hormone levels, and cause liver and testicular damage in people and animals, phthalates used in childrens' toys and animal toys are subjected to federal government regulations.

The government has no such regulations on the use of phthalates - or many other chemicals for that matter - in sex toys.

Continue reading "How to have an ecogasm" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:25 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Juliette Tang

Attention all you narcissists, fetishists, and exhibitionists, Bombshell Betty's crew of pin-up photographers are coming to San Francisco this Sunday, March 15, and they want to take naughty photos of you in your unmentionables. If you bring your bod to Hotel Frank in Union Square on Sunday between 3 to 9pm, along with your cutest skivvies and your sassiest 'tude, you'll get some star treatment that includes a pin-up posing workshop, a hair and make-up session, and a photoshoot that will make you feel like a burlesque goddess like Bombshell Betty herself. Afterward, you get to keep the disc of more than 200 of your own pin-up portraits, which will make a great present for a significant other, and an even better present for yourself. If you can't make it this Sunday to the group session, you can schedule a private one here.

Along with being the birthplace of Bombshell Betty, San Francisco is also home to other talented pin-up photographers who can help you channel the spirits of Betty Page and Gypsy Rose Lee. Check out some more great local pin-up photography services, after the jump.

Continue reading "I see London, I see France ..." »

Posted by SFBG at 05:47 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Johnny Ray Huston. From this week's "Speed Reading" on SFBG.

ANDY WARHOL: BLOW JOB

By Peter Gidal

Afterall Books

86 pages

$16

It's too easy, really, to say that an 86-page appreciation of Andy Warhol's Blow Job is the critical equivalent of the film's title. One potentially funny — though also provocative — aspect of Blow Job is its 36-minute length, a span of time that would make any jawbone, even a purely imaginary one, ache. As filmmaker and writer Peter Gidal points out, that time span is partially achieved through projection — like Warhol's screen tests, Blow Job is presented at the silent-film speed of 18 frames per second, though it was shot at 24 or 25 frames per second.

Blow Job -- sped up to its shooting time

Continue reading "Booking a 36-minute blow job" »

Posted by SFBG at 12:03 AM | | | Comments (0)

By Marke B

Dickinson fetes dick

Do those "Oscars of gay porn," the GayVN Awards, actually help premium homosexual video productions gain a wider audience? Sure there's the "recognition of your peers" aspect for directors, actors, key grips, etc -- you may be surprised, but down those stubbly, grunting faces run the tears of several clowns -- but do you honestly rush out after the awards are announced and snatch up the winning discs?

Well, we don't know about that, but the whole shiny shirted shebang -- hosted this year at the Castro Theatre on March 28, with satellite events all weekend -- sure is a lot of septum-searing fun. (We'll have all the details on the wild pre and after parties here as the "big event" approaches.)

Continue reading "Inflatable woman to host glorious gay circle jerk" »

Posted by Marke B. at 11:34 AM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

According to the "Passion for Christ Movement," or P4CM, "We want you to rock it, but you better have confidence. People will be clowning on you. If you walk into a 7-11, people will be joking and snickering, and you almost want to direct it to those people, telling them, 'You're all laughing, but probably cuz you're all still masturbating."

Is public humiliation really the cure for masturbation? Because we know that after your mom caught you masturbating that one time under the sheets, you completely stopped masturbating cold turkey. Riiiiight. Isn't it enough that every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten and an angel loses his wings? No, not according to P4CM, the masturbation experts:

More hilarious shirts after the jump:

Continue reading "Save a kitten: Look goofy for Jesus" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:54 AM | | | Comments (7)

By Juliette Tang. Read her indepth article about the ironic hipster-altporn connection here.

They may look like a slightly trashier, more dolled up version of the run-of-the-mill American Apparel clad hipster, but the girls above aren't really hipsters at all. They're porn stars dressed as hipsters, and they make movies for Vivid-Alt, a subsidiary of Vivid Entertainment dedicated solely to, quite frankly, heterosexual hipster porn. And no, I'm not talking about those Richard Kern photographs in Vice Magazine. I'm talking about hardcore sex -- in tube socks.

Alternative porn, or "altporn," is nothing new, at least not since the advent of the Internet. While magazines like Hustler and Playboy have formulated the aesthetic of mainstream print pornography, the Internet created a democratic space inside which divergent interpretations of sexuality could be easily presented. Altporn began in the late 1990s with Web sites like GothicSluts and EroticBPM and was initially just an Internet anomaly. But due to the popularity of early altporn sites, new Web sites began to appear, altporn gained a measure of popularity, and by the time SuicideGirls surfaced in 2001, altporn was a full-fledged genre of pornography in and of itself. Seeing as early altporn followed the popularity of subcultures like the goth, punk, and emo movements, it was only a matter of time before altporn 'turned all hipster' (as everything is, it seems, these days).

A clip of The Doll Underground, directed by Eon McKai

I got a chance to chat with director Eon McKai, who has made movies for Vivid-Alt like Girls Lie, Debbie Loves Dallas, and The Doll Underground, a movie that, as improbable as it seems, is actually inspired by the Weather Underground. Eon, who calls himself an "aging hipster," says that everyone at Vivid-Alt is "a part of the subcultures that we represent, so if you look at the people who are behind it, I think you'll find that they are pure to the street, and everything is authentic." And he is totally, completely serious about his mission.

Continue reading "Tube socks lust: Director Eon McKai gets Vivid about his altporn mission" »

Posted by SFBG at 09:58 AM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

The Gospel according to Anal

When my twisted mind thinks of a "Christian sex toy," I think of Linda Blair and her crucifix in The Exorcist. But for many, Christian sex toys are something else entirely. And no, I'm not talking about the The Diving Nun. Because when I think of Diving Nun, I start thinking about the Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

What was I talking about again?

Oh yes, Christian sex toys.

Continue reading "Christian Sex Toy of the Week" »

Posted by Marke B. at 09:23 PM | | | Comments (0)

Hey there, horny toad. It's Marke B. from SFBG beckoning you hither into the Guardian's new SEX SF blog -- our local-focussed, sex-positive, Internetical adventure into the land of wanton lust (and education!). Feel the luxurious sheen of its fishnets on your eyeballs.

We felt there was a mighty big gap in the SF blogosphere, and wanted to fill it with something intelligent, playful, Bay-minded, omnisexual, curious, scandalous, irreverent, and respectful of the extreme diversity of the local sex scene. Oh, and lots of fun. This is our "soft launch," our birds and bees beta, our test-icle if you will. (Look, it's late and I'm short on comic material. Throw a hot tomato at me.) Join us each day as our sensual endeavor grows and grows -- but don't forget your safety gear, you little devil.

If you have any suggestions or tips, email here. Now, let's get it on, and pardon our excited glitches.

Photo of monthly wet jock contest at The Rod by Darwin Bell

Posted by Marke B. at 09:55 PM | | | Comments (0)