By Andrea Nemerson. Email your questions to andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea's columns here.

Dear Andrea:

Since you were so good as to weigh in on "cougar" ["Cougar Den," 10/22/08], perhaps you could settle the evident controversy around the correct usage of "MILF?" I think a MILF (Mother I'd Like to Fuck) is the mother of someone in your peer group. If your mom seems as sexual as burnt toast but Jimmy's mom looks surprisingly hot at the ninth grade bake sale, it makes you reevaluate the sexiness of mothers or, generally, adults over 35. Jimmy's mother is a MILF, and deserves the special category, only from the intergenerational perspective of a 14-year-old or whatever. It seems, though, that it's being used to mean any woman who has a kid, which totally gets my back up. I'm 26 with an infant — I'd like to think I'm sexy in my own right and MILF is uncalled for, unless my kid's friends at play-date start using the term way early. What do you think? Is MILF only referring to women of your parent's age and above, or does it mean any woman who has (gasp!) had a child?

Love,

Still Hot?

Dear Hot:

I think I've weighed in on "cougar" a bunch of times, and fascinated as I am by the way the sexually-not-dead-yet moderately older woman has become the Hottentot Venus of our time — sexualized yet grotesque-ified, exoticized, gawped at, and lampooned — I think I need to leave it alone now. As for "MiLF" and MILFs, we have discussed it and them here, but only once, in passing, when some bozo wrote in about his hot former ex niece-in-law, or something, whom he described as "the very personification of the MILF." And indeed, he did want to F her.

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: MILFbone" »

Posted by SFBG at 04:40 PM | | | Comments (0)

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 Andrea Nemerson. Email your questions to andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea's columns here.

Dear Andrea:

I get irritable with my boyfriend when he doesn't want to have sex. This doesn't happen that often — we've been together less than a year and have sex most times we're together, which is about five days out of seven. But sometimes he's tired or not in the mood. This should be OK, right? If I were the guy and he were the girl, everyone would say "Stop pressuring her!" But I can't help feeling bad. What is wrong with me?

Love,

Moody

Dear Mood:

Indeed, what is wrong with you? Could it be that you are simply an irritable person, and if it were not this issue, you'd find something else about your interactions with Boyfriend Boy to make you cranky? No? Then you're just a normal person who is acting kind of spoiled. You and BFB are occasionally out of synch. And even non-cranky people have a hard time wrapping their heads around this part, but it is nobody's fault.

It would be a vast and silly oversimplification to say that everyone has a natural libido set-point, like the one that keeps your body-weight unsatisfactory (To you! I do not care!) no matter what changes you make to your ratio of calories-in to energy-out. People certainly do seem to have something of a tendency toward the high, middle, or low end of the libido scale, but life, moving on as it does, changes things. (Actually, body-weight set-points also shift, but shut up, it was a nice simile.) Things do calm down a bit post late-adolescence/young adulthood, and even for those who can honestly state that they feel just as driven as always by their own hormones, stuff gets in the way. And sometimes that stuff gets back out of the way eventually, the kids go to college, or a health issue resolves, or they start sleeping better, and a dampened libido can come roaring back to life. So no way am I positing that sex drive takes a long slow dispiriting slide toward oblivion as soon as we become grownups or anything, just that libido is dynamic. Even yours, sex-wanting girl, is subject to change.

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: In the mood" »

Posted by SFBG at 06:48 PM | | | Comments (1)

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 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 Andrea Nemerson: andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea's columns here.

Dear Andrea:

I read an article (I think it was in Redbook) that listed six little known erogenous zones or "hot zones." One was big toes, which they said has a direct connection to the genitals. And one was tip of the nose, which they said it is an erotic area because people get stuffy noses sometimes when they have sex. I don't know. Is there really such a thing as an erogenous zone? What would it take for something to be a real erogenous zone? And is it worth learning these to turn my husband on? We have a good sex life, but sometimes it does seem like we just touch the same places the same way all the time.

Love,

Looking

Dear Look:

Well, don't do that. You don't need a list of unlikely or downright unerotic body parts (I have allergies; don't touch it if you don't want to get sneezed on) to inspire you to branch out a little. In the event that you do need such a list, here are some nongenital, sexually responsive spots for your perusal: nipples, necks, ears, armpits, lower backs, inner thighs, backs of knees, feet. Some of these are "erogenous" simply because they are adjacent to more traditionally eroticized areas (by the time someone's got to your inner thigh, it's a pretty good bet he's going to keep going) and/or because the skin there is thin and well-supplied with both blood vessels and nerve-endings. Some do seem to have their own independent set of erotic responses (fingers, toes). And while we're at the toes, some body parts seem to have sex lives all their own, quite divorced from any nearby genitals. Feet have their own admirers and magazines and special party nights at the sex clubs and more than 4.7 million Google hits. They don't need a good address near the genitals to throw a party.

I think I found your article. It's by Judy Dutton, who is, not at all coincidentally, the author of the book Redbook's 500 Sex Tips. I guess I had Redbook filed as a "ladies'" magazine, but on closer examination, it's more Cosmo (Dutton was an editor there too) than McCall's. I found more "Six filthy things men want you to know" and "16 essential sex techniques you've never heard of" and "the top 26 mistakes you're making in bed" articles from Redbook than I could count, though it appears the Redbook editors would have no trouble totting them up. There was even a "Top 40: excerpts from our steamiest sex articles." And in addition to what I think was our article, there were six other Redbook offerings on erogenous or "hot zones."

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: The zone" »

Posted by SFBG at 05:53 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 Juliette Tang

Those who would like to attend Perry Mann's Erotic Exotic Ball (Oct 24 @ Cow Palace) next weekend but who balk at the $79 general admission price tag (i.e. you, me, and everyone we know) have the option of donating blood this Saturday in exchange for a free pass, while supplies last. Organizers are sponsoring a blood drive at Blood Centers of the Pacific's Irwin Center (270 Masonic Ave) from 2 to 9PM on Saturday (Oct 16) and each donor will receive one ticket to the event. If you wish to schedule an appointment to donate blood, you may go to BloodHeroes.com and enter "ExErBall" as your sponsor code. For those who partake in needle play, this means you can have your cake and eat it too.

The Erotic Ball has graced San Francisco with its presence since 1979 and features "live music, top DJs, erotic performers, exotic dancers, wild sideshows and playful interactive fun on multiple stages". If the video above with its clips from previous years' festivities is anything to go by, this entails near limitless opportunities for depravity and an all-around epic night of partying. A pass seems well worth a little blood, a service to the community, and an hour of on a Saturday afternoon.

Posted by Marke B. at 08:20 AM | | | Comments (1)

By Andrea Nemerson: andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea's columns here

Dear Andrea:

I guess this is pretty common, but it's not something I have any experience with, so please bear with me.

I have a lot of fantasies about being tied up, humiliated, etc. and often think about them while my girlfriend and I are having sex. I'm sure you know where this is going, but I'd really like it if she did the tying up and humiliating — but I have no idea how I would bring it up or how to talk to her about it. It's not like I even know that much about it myself. Should I just forget about it and stick with fantasies? Is it just a stupid idea?

Love,

Unsure

Dear Sure:

I'll tell you one thing: what with all the "I'm sure you already know" and "I don't know much about it myself" and "Do you think I'm stupid even to think about this? How stupid? Really stupid?", you are showing a certain natural talent for abjection that I'm sure will serve you well in your new career as a bottom.

This is a perennial topic, and in a way it has gotten easier to answer over time — when I started the column, I had to recommend books (can you imagine?) and about three Web sites I happened to know about (and you'd never find without me because Google didn't exist). In another way, though, it's, well, not harder, but more disheartening. A girlfriend who'd never heard anything about bondage and discipline except the phrases "whips and chains" and a few grim episodes of Law and Order in 1997 could conceivably just need a little education and just might jump right in as soon as she knew what you were talking about. A girlfriend who says "I don't know what you're talking about, and also, ew!" in 2009 is probably not going to be running down to the Dungeon Hole Gifte Shoppe for a black latex body-bag and a "Gates of Hell" penis cage in your size anytime soon.

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Perv 101" »

Posted by SFBG at 05:11 PM | | | 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)

Interview by Juliette Tang

Midori, photographed by Constance Smith. See more hot local women of BDSM in our "Submission Possible!" cover story this week.

Sex educator, artist, writer, and diva, Midori, is currently showing her latest installation, Plastics, at Femina Potens (2199 Market St). I stopped by Femina Potens to chat with Midori as she was setting up and was faced with a turbulent sea of blow-up dolls, plastic breasts, knives, razor blades, and syringes. We quickly relocated to the more conventional setting of a cafe down the street, where we had a nice chat about avocados and what it means to be kinky, over coffee cake and Earl Gray.

SFBG: So, what kind of classes do you teach?
Midori: With 60 to 70 different topics, I have a wide range to go from general sexuality to the sexual subcultures of Japan to kinkier topics.

SFBG: What are you working on right now?
M: I have a couple of books I'm way behind on that I need to get done. One's about how to eat a peach, and it's really funny and a lot of fun.

SFBG: How to eat a peach? Can you elaborate?
M: So we have this idea that if you can tie a cherry stem into a knot, that means you're good at oral sex. Tying the cherry is not that practical when it comes to our clits. You're not going to take the clit and tie it into a knot. But if a tongue can do a nice, deep thrust and a curl-in, and do that for like, 5 sets of 10: that's practical. You know, I've got a shortish, average tongue. It's not necessarily the equivalent of size. It's how you move it.

From "Silken Sleeves," a short film by Maria Beatty featuring Midori

SFBG: There's a lot of food imagery in that description.
M: One's attitude to sex and life is like one's attitude to food. Food is something you need. However, you can overindulge. You can have a very strange relationship with it. You can have an abusive relationship with it. You can have a market manipulated, media manipulated relationship with food. You can cook it and consume it carelessly, or you can consume it mindfully. You can end up sharing food with a stranger or with someone you absolutely love head-over-heels. Food and sex... the attitude is very similar.

SFBG: Can you give us a food recipe you find particularly sexy?
M: So imagine you've been out all day, on your feet. It's hot and all that, and you come home and your sweetie has one of those beautiful shallow Chinese goldfish ceramics, with pebbles in it. So, hot day you're tired, your feet are swollen. And you have cool water, pebbles, mint leaves, and citrus slices, and your sweetie takes brown sugar and scrubs your feet.

Continue reading "Kinky talk: Midori on how to eat a peach, more" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:28 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Andrea Nebmerson. View more alt.sex.columns here.

andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I've always had a pretty good sex life, with no problems getting it up or keeping it up, until recently. I'm now 59 and suddenly, even a la Viagra, it's just about impossible. It is even difficult for me to get an erection masturbating. I had my doctor give me a whole series of tests and everything seems OK, so I am mystified. Perhaps it is just age (whatever that means, since I have been and remain quite athletic)? Any thoughts or clues? Or is my sex life pretty much over with?

Love,

Feeling Down

Dear Down:

I'm feeling a little down too, just reading this. No way should your sex life just be over, and no way should we assume that that bunch of tests was testing for the right things. As much as we (the sex educator "we") often direct help-seekers right back to their medical providers, medical providers frankly kind of suck at solving sex problems.

Did the doctor test your testosterone? Did s/he check it more than once? Did you get a prostate exam? How about your blood sugar? Are you on beta-blockers or similar for high blood pressure? And, perhaps most important, did s/he send you on for a cardio work-up? I don't want to scare you, but inability to get blood to the pelvis may be indicative of inability to get blood circulating nicely everywhere else, and that's never good.

There is much discussion lately of desire disorders, the sudden (media) prevalence of which is a bit mysterious, not to mention a bit subjective. One person's desire disorder is another's normal sex drive, and refreshing as it has been to see women's sexuality taken seriously, there may be a bit of — dare I call it hysteria?- around women and desire going on out there. But more on all that later. This sounds physical.

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: The new 49" »

Posted by SFBG at 09:12 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)

This weekend, the Power Exchange sex club, one of the few in the city that welcomes more than gay bio-men, was busted by police at its new Tenderloin location last Friday night, ostensibly because of permit violations. It had been facing some ridiculous backlash. Was it really because of transphobia? Commenter robintv posted this eyewitness report. We've been unable to confirm robintv's identity, but if you were there or have any other information please post it in the comments.

Intolerance closes the Power Exchange club in San Francisco
by robintv

Late Friday night the forces of intolerance prevailed in San Francisco, using the San Francisco government to do their bidding.

Around 10:30pm, I heard voices telling everyone to leave the premises, and saw a large number of uniformed San Francisco fire and police personnel had entered the Power Exchange club (PE) at 34 Mason Street. The PE usually is not real busy till after midnight, so there was not a large number of people inside. The whole process was peaceful, and from what I saw, the police and fire dept personnel were courteous and discreet and just following orders and there were no cuffs, no id checks, no photos, we were just told to leave the club.

After exiting, we milled around outside the PE talking with each other, passerbys, local residents, and M Powers, the PE owner. People continued to arrive at PE by foot and cabs, including a number of transgender (TG) women who frequented the Otis St location and were returning to the PE for their first time at the new Mason St. location. They were returning to the only space where they could safely be themselves, socialize with other TG women and friends and meet people who are attracted to TG women, without risk of being verbally abused, beaten, or even murdered. Many, including myself, have been going to the PE for over 10 years.

For many, the PE has been a sanctuary of tolerance and acceptance in a world of intolerance, persecution and pain.

As I stood there on a beautiful, warm, September SF night, it was difficult for me to believe that this was happening in San Francisco, where the politicians give a lot of lip service to how tolerant SF is.

I believe the PE has limited resources and lawyers are very costly. A business can be right and the city wrong, but still loose if the business has used up its resources in proving it is right, and can not reopen. Thus, even if PE is right, which I suspect they are, they can still be forced to stay closed and intolerant haters will prevail in forcing their religious/moral values on others using the San Francisco government as a forceful vehicle to do so.

What to do?

Will your favorite club/venue/ business be the next target of the intolerance crusade?

Posted by SFBG at 03:52 PM | | | Comments (4)

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 Louis Peitzman

Festivities for the fourth annual Good Vibrations Independent Erotic Film Festival (aka IXFF) are now underway -- but the main event is a film screening Thurs/17 at the Castro. What follows is the first installment in a series of interviews with filmmakers from the fest.

Filmmaker: Petra Joy
Film: Hardback

San Francisco Bay Guardian: What was the inspiration for your film?
Petra Joy: I wanted to show the power play between this real life couple. Even though she is usually more dominant and he is the (hunky) submissive, their sexuality is fluid and flows freely. The resprect each other and it turns them on to pleasure each other in body, mind and soul.I also wanted to break the big taboo of women penetrating men and celebrate the prostate as a highly erogenous zone.

SFBG: What did you hope to accomplish with it?
PJ: I wanted to show that s/m sex does not have to be extreme and role patterns not cast in stone. Just becasue he licks her feet does not mean that she will not enjoy to be penetrated by him. I hope to inspire women and men to experiment more and make their fantasies come true - far away from all the definitions of gender roles and classifications of sexuality they are often hemmed in by.

Continue reading "Sexy celluloid: Good Vibrations Independent Erotic Film Festival artists speak!" »

Posted by SFBG at 06:29 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Marke B.

The Steven Scarborough-directed "Trunks 2" won the auspicious 2006 Maleflixxx Gold VOD Award

This just in from the Facebook:

"Jeffrey Escoffier will offer a profile of San Francisco's historic role in the creation of the gay porn industry. There will be video show of the highlights of San Francisco's erotic film making. His guest will be Steven Scarborough, one of gay porn's great directors and who helped establish its economic foundations."

Scarborough helped bring porn into the condom age with his work at Falcon and then Hot House, so this may be pretty interesting. He's also a cutie:

Bigger than Life
Thu/17, 6-9pm, free
GLBT Historical Society
657 Mission St, Suite 300
www.glbthistory.org

Posted by SFBG at 03:29 PM | | | Comments (0)

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

After I met my nutrition coach Matt Lascala, (in my spanking class at Good Vibrations no less), I was told that eliminating all sugars, dairy, and grains from my diet would be helpful to me. I was somewhat skeptical to say the least - okay, I thought, I’ll try it for a week or two, and then maybe let it go. After only three days I had much more energy, slept well at night (I had tendencies towards insomnia), became more productive and basically regained a new sense of pleasure in life! I was sold.

I have always been interested in cuisine and decided long ago not to become a chef because I was afraid of losing my creative compunctions in the kitchen from working long hours for other people. So I became a Dominatrix. The PaleoZone diet has opened up a new sense of creativity for me as far as foods I can and cannot eat and how to get that crazy Provencial Gourmande feel from such a paltry sounding diet. It has been a phenomenal inspiration. I liken its rustic feel to Medieval debauchery, and since I love playing as well as eating, I decided to start “pairing” my meals with my play.

Modifications:
Technically, one does not drink wine while dieting, but since this regimen is for optimal health and not for weight loss (though I have lost 10 lobs or so in the first six weeks), I keep wine because it gives the Mistress a certain quality of life she enjoys. You may wish to modify things as well, depending on your dietary and quality of life needs.

Menu:

Pork Spare Ribs Braised with Beets and Onions
Collard Greens and Baby Daikon
Cirtrus Peaches with Filberts

Paired with: Rubber Abduction, Electrical Play, Forced Release

Continue reading "Sexcipe: Pork ribs with a side of rubber gimp" »

Posted by SFBG at 07:26 PM | | | 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 Juliette Tang

Why is it that erotic pain sounds so much more attractive when described in a French accent? Ask Cleo Dubois, the francophonic Madame who runs The Academy of SM Arts, an informal school and sex education curriculum that offers adult workshops and seminars in the practice of BDSM. I attended a Flogging Salon at Femina Potens on Wednesday, taught by Ms.Dubois, Eve Minax, and Selena Raven, and left two hours later mildly deaf from the loud, rhythmic cacophony of leather-against-skin still echoing in my brain. It was worth it.

Rocket, the gracious volunteer who is associated with The Exiles (a local women-on-women BDSM society), was one of the stars of the night -- stoically accepting a level of abuse from Cleo, Eve, and Selina that would have made most men cry. Watching Rocket being flogged, I felt the impulse to take one of Cleo's beautiful floggers and whip my ex-boyfriend with it repeatedly. But, the fact Rocket was a consenting adult and obviously fine with the flogging took the fun out of my revenge fantasy. Also, in the "Flogging 101" handout that Mme Dubois distributed at the beginning of the class, the rules explicitly say, however, that flogging is "NEVER IN ANGER" (all caps) "or REVENGE!" And when a woman brandishing an enormous leather flogger talks, you listen.

Mme Dubois describes flogging as "an element of a fantasy... A flogging can be purely for sensations and accompanying tension release it brings. Or it can be a ritual of fire leading to catharsis." As with most things, there is a correct way to flog ("spins, hit & drag, figure 8 and variations") and an incorrect way to flog (anything else). During the Flogging Salon, I got a flogging lesson, a lesson on couples' communication, an anatomy lesson (also hit the fleshy parts of the body, and never anywhere bony or jointed), and even learned a few tidbits about chakras and energy. I'm not going to give all the secrets away, so to learn more, check out the Academy of SM Arts, which hosts frequent workshops at The Citadel. The pictures, I believe, speak for themselves.

When I left Femina Potens, the girls were still flogging away. You could hear the leather cracking away from the street outside, and a few curious pedestrians milling about Castro Street peered through the curtained windows confusedly. While I don't particularly feel the urge to flog anyone (or be flogged), I can honestly say now that I'm not opposed to the idea. In their Salon, Cleo, Eve, and Selina helped demystify the process of erotic flogging, explaining that in this age of sexual relativity and multiplicity, flogging is just another option in the all-you-can-eat sexual buffet.

Posted by SFBG at 05:20 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Andrea Nemerson. Read more of her columns here.

andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I'm confused. Are there any guys out there who aren't at the extremes as far as sex goes? My ex-boyfriend was completely obsessed. Not only did he want it four-plus times a day, he'd want to have phone sex at least twice a day when we were apart. I think of myself as a pretty sexual person, but even I have my limits. Plus phone sex was boring. I like to masturbate, but it's hard for me to orgasm when I feel the person on the end of the line is waiting. But that's not why he's my ex. He was rather immature. He was so obsessed with sex, everything was sexual. If I said it was raining out. He'd say "oooh sounds ... wet." If I said something was hard (difficult) he'd say "ooh, hard!" It was like that with everything! He was not some 20-year-old kid, either. He was 48! I'm 31 and I felt I was more mature than he was. So we broke up. Then I fell in love with his polar opposite. We've been together a couple years and our sex life has gone downhill rapidly, from two or three times a week to maybe once every three months. I've tried to initiate, but I get nowhere. It only happens when he wants it to. I really love this guy and I want to marry him. I just need to figure out how to find a happy medium.

Love,

Opposite Day

Dear Day:

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Ooo, hard" »

Posted by SFBG at 06:45 PM | | | Comments (2)

By Juliette Tang. Photos by Jack Lukic

Art of Restraint, a quarterly event held at Femina Potens Gallery (2199 Market St), was quite a tranquil affair, given the subject matter of all the artist performances. A well-heeled audience, many of whom had "Do not photograph" stickers adhered to their gallery finery, milled around drinking champagne and wine while bondage artists Fivestar, Judy Minx, Madame Butterfly, Midori, Lochai, James Mogul, and Madison Young performed one after the other in a calm, albeit kinky, manner. The somber atmosphere was reinforced by the music accompaniment, most of which was ambient and mournful. Ms. Young and Mr. Mogul's performed to the sad, falsetto trilling of Sigur Ros, a band whom I have never before listened to in the context of bondage arts but which in retrospect seemed a strangely fitting choice for this real-life couple.

Continue reading "Tied up: A second look at Art of Restraint" »

Posted by SFBG at 03:23 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Andrea Nemerson. View more Alt.sex.columns here.

andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

My lover and I have amazing sex. We love each other dearly too. We've been seeing each other for three years with no decrease in intensity. I'm 45, he's 37, and I've got two kids (who are older, so they cannot be held responsible for the following problem).

A few times lately when we've made love, I have had a small bowel movement. I always have multiple orgasms and there is squirting involved (which he really gets off on), which involves sort of bearing down. This has only happened three times in all, I think. But I'm horrified. He's a saint (overall, and about this in particular), and just murmurs he'll get me a warm facecloth, then wipes me off (as I'm generally lying there grinning and sort of unaware of what's going on til later when I see the sheets).

I doubt he's getting off on that part — more that he figures it's a necessary evil (since the sex is so good). But I'm not happy about it, so what to do? Is this a dietary thing? Do I need to lay off the Indian food before he comes over? Try my hardest to do a BM before sex?

Any info hugely appreciated!

Love,

Horrified

Dear 'Fied:

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Rear window" »

Posted by SFBG at 07:43 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Juliette Tang

God damn. Eric Wareheim (of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job) has directed a music video for Major Lazer that makes me want to find someone willing to pretend that my ass is a turntable and get down. Watch the above video (and make sure you watch it until the end because 3:14 is, I believe, the most hysterical part of the whole thing).

We've been following the Jamaican daggering craze for a while now, but never would we have thought that the venerable Eric Wareheim would take a stab (hah) at interpreting this cultural phenomenon. For those who are unfamiliar, "daggering" is a style of Jamaican dance that basically simulates crazy rough sex. Like, the kind of acrobatic sex only Jamaican daggerers and Cirque du Soleil performers are capable of. One of the moves, called "sky daggering," literally involves dancers flipping and catapulting themselves onto one another in ways that scare me. Due to the increasing popularity of this form of dance, it's caused some public controversy, and the Jamaican government has even launched a campaign against "daggeration" and music associated with it are banned from Jamaican airwaves.

Continue reading "Daggering: Eric Wareheim shows us how it's done" »

Posted by SFBG at 05:08 PM | | | Comments (0)

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

I've heard of people having sex on exercise balls, but I've never heard of an exercise ball fetish, in the true sense, before today. A 31-year old man from Duluth, MN, is on the run from cops after breaking into a gym and slashing a bunch of exercise balls "to satisfy a sexual urge". According to the Associated Press:

Authorities are familiar with the man. A criminal complaint released Thursday said he was convicted in 2005 of breaking into a sports facility at the University of Minnesota in Duluth and slashing about 70 balls. Each ball cost between $30 and $60. The complaint says when he pleaded guilty in that case, he admitted slashing more than 40 other balls at two clinics.

Court documents said the man told police he slashed the rubber balls to satisfy a sexual urge. Experts said he has an unusual attraction to inflatable exercise devices.

While this is the first time I've ever heard of a fetish related to exercise balls, it's really not that weird in context.

Continue reading "One pop and you can't stop" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:57 PM | | | Comments (2)

By Juliette Tang

Folsom Street Fair: Not sexy enough for ya?

If you thought you heard the last of that stupid Trojan sex survey, then maybe you should stop reading this.

For those lucky enough to remain unexposed to this survey of which I speak, the basic gist is that we in SF aren't boning enough and when we do have sex, well, it sucks and we don't even like it. We ranked dead last out of 10 cities profiled by Trojan in terms of sexual frequency, and second to last (next to Boston) in sexual satisfaction.

Mike Alvear, host of HBO's The Sex Inspectors, is the latest blogger to drudge this tired survey up. In a Huffington Post column today, he writes that he's figured out why San Francisco rated so low, comparable to Atlanta, of all places.

Continue reading "They don't call it Hotlanta for nothing, I guess" »

Posted by SFBG at 11:49 AM | | | Comments (3)

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

andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

WebMD sent out this slightly goofy "10 Amazing Health Benefits of Sex.", an article virtually identical to dozens of others I've dutifully read, but you, perhaps, have been spared. Among the benefits of "healthy loving in a relationship," according to the article (summaries mine) are:

1. Less stress: Volunteers kept sex diaries and were then subjected to stressful situations. "Those who had intercourse had better responses to stress than those who engaged in other sexual behaviors or abstained."

Neat. I'm interested to note that it's intercourse, rather than other sex acts. Added to the older study that found that feel-good hormone levels spike after intercourse but not masturbation, it's starting to look like penis-vagina intercourse produces a unique hormonal response and possibly provides unique payoffs in the health-and-well-being department. It would be nice if someone thought to check whether intercourses available to the non-p/v-sex-having population produce similar effects, but I'm not holding my breath.

2. Immunity: "People who have sex once or twice a week produce more immunoglobulin A (IgA). Subjects who reported having less or a whole lot more sex have lower IgA."

Huh. Moderation in all things, right? I guess we shouldn't be surprised to find it applies to sex. But does it; or were there other factors here? Maybe the high-IgA moderates were in committed relationships, while the nevers were lonely and the horn-dogs were sleeping around? Who knows?

3. Calories: "Thirty minutes of sex burns 85 calories or more," claims WebMD. "It may not sound like much, but it adds up: 42 half-hour sessions will burn 3,570 calories, more than enough to lose a pound. Doubling up, you could drop that pound in 21 hour-long sessions."

I've seen umpteen versions of the ridiculous sex/calories breakdown and this might be the silliest yet. Forty-two half-hour sessions (of apparently extremely energetic pumping; if you want foreplay or a kissing break, you'll have to budget extra time) will take most couples months to achieve, and few people rack up anything like 21 hour-long sessions in a lifetime. You'd be better off on a treadmill. Or you could do try one of the following (supplied for your amusement by my exercise-geeking husband), all of which you're more likely to fit into your daily schedule than a solid half-hour of "vigorous thrusting," as they used to say:

2 minutes of wrestling
8.5 minutes of running
17 minutes of gardening
60 minutes of sitting and reading
135 minutes of sleeping

I'll take 60 minutes of sitting and reading, please.

4. Cardiovascular: Researchers found that neither having nor not-having sex was correlated with strokes. More impressive, they "also found that having sex twice or more a week reduced the risk of fatal heart attack by half for the men, compared with those who had sex less than once a month."

Again, there may be other factors here, since the heart-healthy guys presumably had partners, and both loneliness and the death of a spouse are highly correlated with dropping dead. Broken hearts cause broken hearts. Still, nice news for older men who do have partners. Have at it, dudes. As for the ladies?

5. Self-esteem: "Boosting self-esteem was one of 237 reasons people have sex."

Hahaha! 237 is a mighty big number. You could fit anything in there. Reason # 6: Getting partner to leave you alone so you can go to sleep. Reason # 33: bored. Reason #235: free rent.

6. Intimacy: "Sex and orgasms raise levels of oxytocin, the famous bonding, trust, and generosity hormone." The article goes on to cite a study showing that women's levels of oxytocin rise after "warm contact" and hugs with their husbands, but you don't need sex to get that.

7. Pain: "In a study published in the Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 48 volunteers who inhaled oxytocin vapor and then had their fingers pricked lowered their pain threshold by more than half."

Coolness.

8. Prostate cancer: "Men who had five or more ejaculations weekly while in their 20s reduced their risk of getting prostate cancer later by a third."

There are a lot of similar studies supporting this. And finally, a clear benefit not dependent on male/female intercourse! Any old ejaculation will do it.

9. Sleep: Oxytocin and exercise promote sleep, and lack of same is correlated with every bad thing from divorce to weight gain.

That's ... nine. I lost one somewhere.

Of course, few of us need a specific reason to have sex, nor are we likely to be sufficiently motivated by any of the above to go get some, if not already inclined. As for the slightly worrisome implication that emerges from these articles that there is one true (straight, vanilla, monogamous) sex-style that is good for us, well. If we want research into the cardiovascular effects of polyamory or immune responses to S&M, we're just going to have to do it ourselves.

Love,

Andrea

Posted by SFBG at 08:48 AM | | | Comments (0)

For those currently on the hunt for gainful employment, 11 of San Francisco's gentlemens clubs -- including The Gold Club, Hustler Club, Broadway Showgirls and Centerfolds -- are having a job fair next Monday, July 20, at the Holiday Inn at Fisherman's Wharf (1300 Columbus Ave). The job fair goes from noon to 5PM. One could do worse than to earn between $100 and $400 a night in tips. Like, you could not have a job, or your passion could be blogging.

Pull press release after the jump.

Continue reading "Need a job? Gentlemens clubs to the rescue" »

Posted by SFBG at 04:13 PM | | | Comments (2)

By Juliette Tang

A new study conducted by researchers at Oxford University and the University College of London argues that, should a woman want to get pregnant, her chances are better with man who's unattractive.

The logic goes as follows: attractive males have more sex. Because attractive guys have more partners, they have to allocate their sperm carefully from partner to partner, in order to maximize chances of knocking up more women. Whereas because unattractive guys don't have as many partners, they can afford to blow it all, if you will, on the few they have.

What exactly constitutes "attractive" versus "unattractive," the study does not say. However, the study does draw an entertaining comparison between human beings and "animals such as the domestic fowl, and fish such as the Arctic charr." It concludes by admitting, "The model should also be expanded to include the effects of short-term sperm depletion, which is known to affect ejaculate content" (i.e. the study needs to consider the case of frequent masturbators). Relevant? You decide.

Sex therapist Ian Kerner revisits the 1974 Shaky Bridge Study, which reveals that, when exposed to larger amounts of adrenaline and stress, people are more prone to sexual attraction and romantic attachment.

Psychologists Arthur Aron and Donald Dutton used two bridges, a solid one that rose 10 feet over sea level, and this one, the Capilano Canyon Suspension Bridge which is 5 feet wide, 450 feet long, and sways 250 feet above the river below, as the setting for their research. For the first part of the study, they had an attractive woman stand at the middle of the sturdy bridge, asking random passerbys to fill out a short psychology survey. She then gave the men her phone number, asking them to call if they were interested in finding results. The next day, she repeated the routine, on the more dangerous suspension bridge.

Continue reading "Three possibly relevant sex studies" »

Posted by SFBG at 05:15 PM | | | 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)

By Juliette Tang

Let's face it: Craigslist's new "Adult Services" listing is pretty much just like the old Erotic Services one, but with a new name, a higher price tag, more inconvenience, and no more nude photos. But there's a new Web site coming to town that might change the face of online soliciting for good: Stagslist.

Unlike Craigslist, Stagslist publicly accepts its role in facilitating online sex work. Stagslist exists solely as an online listing of erotic and adult services and gigs, with the difference being no monitoring, no charge, and no personal verification. For some sex workers, the lack of verification on Stagslist (Craigslist currently requires a phone number, a credit card charge of $10, plus a working Craigslist account) will be liberating. Stagslist offers greater privacy and a forum to post whatever you want, because they won't screen or modify your ads. And for other sex workers content with Craigslist's verification system, who feel that it offers a barrier of protection between them and the outside world, Craigslist's Adult Services listing will still be an option. The arrival of a new erotic listing in town with the openness and viability of Stagslist will level the playing field so that Craigslist hopefully won't be the main provider of an online adult services forum in San Francisco. And it gives sex workers the option of choosing which platform best suits their specific needs.

Stagslist goes live on July 9, 2009, at noon. While right now, there's nothing on the site, I'm interested to see what Thursday will bring.

Full press release after the jump.

Continue reading "Craigslist goes Stag" »

Posted by SFBG at 12:36 PM | | | Comments (12)

SFBG's Justin Juul asks zookeeper Jane Tollini -- former penguin keeper at the San Francisco Zoo, and originator of the annual "Woo at the Zoo" tour -- about life, love, and sex in the animal kingdom. Read the previous installment here.

SFBG: Do monkeys get off on human porn?
Tollini: Apes do, yeah. You can teach an ape anything. If you bring in a human woman and have her demonstrate nursing to a gorilla that grew up in captivity, that gorilla will learn how to nurse a baby. But apes have pretty low sex drives so they probably wouldn’t be as in to porn as we are. The truth about animals is that very few of them actually have sex for pleasure. So there’s not much masturbating going on in the animal kingdom. It’s a little different at the zoo because our animals have more spare time, but masturbating and porn are pretty much human-specific. There are a few exceptions, I guess. I mean I’ve heard that alligators, elephants, and some primates have g-spots. But who the hell knows? I mean, how did they figure that out? You don’t just stick your finger inside and alligator and go “Does this feel good?” I mean, what…do they do give them a cigarette afterwards? Come on!

SFBG: You mentioned gay penguins a minute ago, and that’s something everybody knows about, but I was wondering, are there any other animals out there that practice homosexuality? And if so, what do you think that means for humans? I mean, if it’s not an issue for animals, why is it always such an issue for us?
Tollini: Oh my god! There are so many animals out there who just love the one they’re with. Really, you’d be surprised. I’ve seen gay chimps, gay birds, gay everything! Manatees --who are on the endangered species list, by the way, so they have an extra incentive to reproduce-- form lifelong homosexual bonds in both sexes. And so do other animals, which to me is proof that being gay is totally natural.

SFBG: Is there any sort of ostracizing that goes down, like how humans gay bash each other?

Continue reading "Jane of the Jungle: Tolerant beasts, big-brained assholes, and naughty schoolgirls" »

Posted by SFBG at 02:37 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang. Check out Madison in this our Hot Pink List 2009!

Madison Young: renaissance porn star. She is most famous for being an adult entertainment performer and director, but she's also a writer, blogger, sex educator, artist, and the founder of San Francisco's Femina Potens Gallery, an art space dedicated to bringing visibility to the artwork of female, queer, and trans artists in our community. For Madison's work as an advocate of queer empowerment in our community - and for personally making sure (via her www.madisonbound.com Web site) that we have plenty of access to hot queer BDSM - we're showcasing Madison in our upcoming Queer Issue (this Wednesday!) in honor of Pride Week.

Madison recently sat down with the San Francisco Bay Guardian to discuss her work in pornography, the philosophy of Femina Potens, and the importance of art and advocacy in our community.

SFBG: You founded Femina Potens in 2001. How did you come up with the concept of the gallery, one that advances the art of women, queer, trans, and kink communities in SF? Why do you personally feel it is important for these artists to have a space to express themselves and showcase their work?

MY: I always knew that I wanted to create a physical space for artistic growth, collaboration and community connection. When I moved to San Francisco in 2001, I realized the focus that I wanted that space to have due to a lack of existing physical spaces for women and trans community dialogue around art and sex. Femina Potens fills that void. We have created an accessible and visible physical space in the heart of the Castro where the voices of visual, literary, and cinematic artist are being heard. We are breaking down barriers between the artist and audience, creating interactive art works, blurring the lines of gender and alternative sexual cultures, and creating a space for artistic growth of emerging artists who are exhibiting or reading side by side with queer literary and artistic legends like Michelle Tea, Annie Sprinkle, Carol Queen, Inga Muscio, Daphne Gottlieb and more. Its important for us not only to have transitory festivals and events at other organizations spaces but for our community to have a physical space where their work is celebrated. Creating spaces like Femina Potens allows women and trans community an honest reflection of their experiences and their lives. It also encourages more people in the community to exhibit their work. Our audiences range in gender and sexuality, attracting a crowd that is drawn to cutting edge art, alternative sexuality, avant-garde performances, and flocks of tourists who are interested in the "San Francisco Experience".

SFBG: What sparked your interest in art? How would you describe your level of involvement with the general artistic community?

MY:I grew up in a very small conservative farm town and then the suburbs of Ohio. I always felt like an outsider. I was constantly trying to stretch my wings for something more. I was instantly drawn to theater and art from my first elements of exposure to this world. In a life where I felt unable to to express myself emotionally, I found art in its many forms to be the purest most honest expulsion of what was going on inside of me. Art was a way to connect to others and to communicate. Art was a way to get out of my head and into my body. I convinced my mother to let me attend a performance art school in downtown Cincinnati for my junior and senior year. That is where I truly found myself and knew that art would always be a part of my life. I often tell people that the first sexual experiences that I had were those that happened on a stage in a black box theater. That is where I first was able to let myself go and to energetically connect in an intimate way with another person.

SFBG: Do you think there are noted artistic, political, or ideological differences between the work exhibited at Femina Potens and that of more mainstream galleries?

Continue reading "Madison Young: our favorite art slut" »

Posted by SFBG at 03:29 PM | | | Comments (3)

By Juliette Tang

Frameline, the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival kicks off tomorrow and a quick glance through the festival schedule reveals that we are in for some sexy little treats. I have not seen any of the films, so I can only conjecture at their artistic or cinematic value. I did, however, sit through the trailers, and after doing so, I now know which films offer sex scenes.

Trailer for And Then Came Lola.

And Then Came Lola is the gay, San Francisco version of Run Lola Run. Because of the allusion to its German predecessor, in And Then Came Lola, Lesbian Lola is by plot's invisible hand, forced to run - rather than cab - all over San Francisco in order to save her relationship with a girl named Casey. The film is described as a "fun-filled lesbian rom-com of 2009 complete with SF inside jokes and sexy bedroom scenes".

Still from Boy

Boy is a Filipino movie about a young, rich lad who pays a gogo dancer at a party to go home with him, upon which they fall in love (and will forever have a great story to regale polite company at dinner parties when asked how they met). In the blurb on Frameline's Web site, Michael Fox ambitiously alliterates: "lengthy, lovely, languid love scene".

Trailer for Lollipop Generation.

According to its description, The Lollipop Generation offers these things: a bathroom blowjob, masturbation scenes, hooking, punks making porn, and lollipop licking. Shot on Super 8 film, the images might be too grainy to see all the dirty stuff, but at least you know its there.

Still from Dirt and Desire

Dirt and Desire is a set of dirty short films starring "sexy, hot, and porn-arific queers of all genders". If something is described as "porn-arific," you can bet there will be sex involved. Featuring shorts with titles like The Leather Daddy and the Unicorn, Kat-I’s Sex Toy Stories, and Tour de Pants, Dirt and Desire offers a feast of naked people doing, you know, all sorts of things.

Trailer for Greek Pete.

Greek Pete is a sexually explicit documentary about a year in the life of Pete, a rent boy in London who jumped in the game because he wanted to make fast money, and hooking was, in his own words, "the quickest and bestway to make loads of publicity". Well, at least we feel less bad, in that case, for not feeling sorry for him.

Still from Thundercrack

Thundercrack is an underground porno/horror flick from 1975 that maintains the healthy cult following automaticlaly entitled to any movie of that description. The film stars 4 men, 3 women, and a gorilla, and "will arouse, challenge and question you through every torrid moment of solo, gay, bisexual and straight couplings, voyeurism and more". Though not scary for a horror film, the scarily bad dialogue is truly something to fear. But hey, at least Thundercrack is funny, and there's lots of sex.

Still from Shank

Sensitive, secretly gay thugs at so hot. In Shank, a sensitive, secretly gay thug named Cal drops trou in a "a sweet patio seduction scene" with a guy named Oliver.

Trailer for Champion

Champion, a film by Pink & White Productions (famous for the series) is, like Million Dollar Baby, a sexy film about a boxing lesbian -- except this one features, in addition to the fighting, some rough lesbian sex. Angelique Smith at Frameline describes in more detail: "sweet, sweet pain of scratching, hair pulling, bondage, slapping, anal, choking and biting, with some unexpected FTM action thrown in!"

Posted by Marke B. at 04:25 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Justin Juul. Read part two of this interview here.

Woo at the Zoo, the afterparty

Being a part-time sex writer is tough because there’s only so much you can say about the topic. Lovemaking is a lot like eating in that way; we all have peculiar ways of doing it, specific attractions to wildly different things, and often-clashing ideas about what’s good and bad, right and wrong, etc. But it’s not like we’re breaking a lot of new ground when we talk about these things; we’re just sharing stories and ideas about an urge and all the weird stuff that happens when we try to satisfy it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that sex is boring or that I don’t enjoy writing about it; it’s just that sometimes I need a break. That’s why I tracked down this month’s featured sexpot, Jane Tollini. Tollini is not a sex worker. She doesn’t do porn and she doesn’t work for a dildo company. Why interview her for a sex blog then? Well, Tollini offers something that bookish porn stars, ex-manwhores, and transsexual southerners don’t. She offers a sex writer the chance to talk about something other than humans fucking. Instead I get to talk about animals fucking. Yay!

Jane talks facts of life

As a life-long veteran of the San Francisco Zoo (she lived next to it as a child, served almost 20 years there as a penguin keeper, and now works as a consultant), Tollini has seen it all. From donkey shows, to masturbating raccoons, to highly questionable cross-species relationships; you name it and Tollini’s got a story. By the time she’d been at the zoo for a year, Tollini realized she had enough material to host her own beastly sex forum so she grabbed a microphone and never looked back. Tollini’s “Sex Tour,” now known as “Woo at The Zoo,” is an annual romp through the world of sex in the animal kingdom. It happens every Valentine’s day at The San Francisco Zoo, but you can check it out early this year on June 25th when Tollini will be hosting a special kick-off to Pride Week at The California Academy of Sciences called “How Animals Do It.” Tickets available here.

Part One: Gay penguins, animals with two dicks, and the way it used to be

SFBG: So how did you become San Francisco’s premier animal sex guru?
Jane Tollini: I met a pair of lesbian geese named Alice and Gertrude. They stood out to me because, even thought hey had full access to a male goose named Henry Miller, they didn’t want to be with him. Alice and Gertrude laid eggs for each other and then they took care of them as a couple. It was such strange behavior; I just couldn’t help wondering what other kinds of kinky things animals got into. Well, as an animal keeper, I soon found out. When you get to the zoo first thing in the morning, you see a lot of things other people don’t see, believe me. I remember thinking things like “My God, it’s longer than my arm! It’s got a flowering doohickey on the end of it!” Soon after I started at the zoo, I was put in charge of the penguins and that’s when I really started to notice some weird behavior.

Continue reading "Jane of The Jungle: Zookeeper Jane Tollini on life, love, and sex in the animal kingdom" »

Posted by Marke B. at 01:32 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Juliette Tang

Reading this article about the risks of summer sex in LiveScience got me thinking about how I hate it when these sorts of alarmist articles come out, proclaiming the tired cliche that outdoor sex is bad for you. Not bad in the sense that it might land you in jail or cause you public humiliation if discovered, but bad -- i.e. dangerous -- because you might get sunburned, risk exposure to bacteria that live outdoors, or get your genitalia stung by a poisonous jellyfish (seriously?) from the ocean. We all understand that going outside to have sex comes with certain risks. But we also know that even though every so often another article will be published reiterating the same message, people will still be having sex outdoors. Let's face it: outdoor sex is fun and people like it.

Even though sex on the beach might be more burning than hot, with the potential of, literally, sandpapering your sexy bits (sand, friction, ouch!), it's not like people will simply stop doing it. Entire generations have had their fantasies fueled by the beach scene in From Here to Eternity. As a society, beach and other types of outdoor sex have made it on our collective list of "sex acts to have before you die," right up there with the menage-a-trois and having sex on an airplane. If we didn't take our outdoor sex seriously, why is there a book called The 50 Places to Make Love in Golden Gate Park? Instead of merely listing the risks, these articles would be light years more useful if they gave people clear alternatives (sex by the pool, for instance, instead of sex by the beach) or helpful tips on how to make outdoor sex safer. That way, we can all stop freaking out and start getting freaky, especially since summer is finally present -- or as present as it will ever be -- in San Francisco.

Continue reading "Take it outside this summer" »

Posted by Marke B. at 03:24 PM | | | Comments (0)

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

Hand jobs. Are people still giving, getting, or even thinking about them? I'm not talking about a few jerks during foreplay either. I'm asking if anyone out there habitually engages in hot and heavy hand love... and goes all the way. Because it seems, in many peoples' sex lives, that the hand job is to a CD Walkman what the blow job is to an iPod. It was great when you were in junior high, but then something new came around and you sort of forgot about it. I occasionally see used latex gloves discarded on the sidewalk, and we regularly hear about San Francisco law enforcement cracking down on local massage parlors (so obviously someone out there is paying for it) but - like secret societies, group sex, and crack - hand jobs are something you know is out there, though you're hard pressed to know anyone who regularly participates. I awkwardly asked some of my male friends, both straight and gay, "When was the last time you got a hand job?" and then quickly added, "And not from yourself." The most common response was, "And... um, came?"

What once seemed so sexy and thrilling in 9th grade has now, in adulthood, become prosaic. But why? Have we really graduated from the hand job? Is it that because those who can simply jerk themselves off would rather engage in other activities when with a partner? Do hand jobs seem dispassionate and sterile? Or is it simply that, for most, no one else really gives a hand job quite as good as one can give oneself?

Continue reading "Handjobs: Are we having them?" »

Posted by SFBG at 04:13 PM | | | Comments (6)

By Juliette Tang

While some of us can't even handle being in a single relationship much less multiple relationships, The Ethical Slut author Dossie Easton has been non-monogamous since 1969. Easton will be at the Center for Sex and Culture (1519 Mission St) tomorrow (June 5, 2-4pm, $5-$10 sliding scale) for a book signing, reading, and discussion of The Ethical Slut's recently released second edition, which contains two new chapters (Opening an Existing Relationship, Lifestyles of the Single Slut) and extensive rewrites, particularly around the topic that is inherent in any discussion of polyamory: jealousy. For those who engage in polyamory - or for those merely interested in the possibilities - Easton's book is a straightforward, informative, and illuminating resource on consensual non-monogamy as a lifestyle.

Polyamory will always be a controversial subject as long as monogamy is the cultural norm. Not only is marriage an inherently monogamous institution (and an institution that is now best described as bullshit in the state of California), but we even tend to think of dating as a series of monogamous relationships separated from one another by fallow periods of 'singlehood' that only end when we meet the next person we want to be monogamous with. This idea of having "one" partner is reinforced everywhere, from culture to ethics to law, and it's ingrained in the very rituals and ideologies that dictate our social behavior.

Continue reading "Slut-muscle mania" »

Posted by SFBG at 03:53 PM | | | Comments (3)

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

Dear Readers:
Since I can't write this week, I thought I could at least rerun a letter germane to recent discussions.

Dear Andrea:

I met a guy through his very explicit and fun Craigslist ad describing the weird-ass kinky sex he wanted. So we e-mailed, met, and had a great time. He's handsome, intelligent, artsy ... totally my type. We end up in bed, he gives me some quality oral sex, and then he ejaculates within two minutes. He makes no move to get me off either, just makes some remark about that being "my random Craigslist hookup." I'm too flabbergasted to ask for more oral sex. And then he wants to spend the night and cuddle. I'm frustrated and confused, but let him, and don't comment on his premature ejaculation for fear of damaging his ego. Later we have sex again, and again he ejaculates within minutes. What do I do when he calls? What should I have said at the time?

Love,

UnListed

Dear List:

I once sat on a panel with Craig from Craiglist and I'm imagining him being mortified by this entire story. He's a shy boy. I would also dearly love to link to the offending ad, but it seems faintly unethical, although it's often said that once you post something on the Web, it's public, period, and ripe for linkage. He's probably taken it down by now, anyway.

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Objects in mirror" »

Posted by SFBG at 10:13 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

There is a famous hairy ball theorem in algebraic topology which states that, on a spherical object, there is no non-vanishing continuous vector field. Basically, if you have a hairy ball, mathematically speaking, you cannot flatten all the hairs so that they all lay down smoothly. Some hairs will always stand up straight or create a bald spot where the scalp of the ball will show through.

Or, as famously stated by Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer in 1912, "you can't comb a hairy ball flat without creating a cowlick" -- an assertion was also stated from time to time by Brouwer as "You can't comb the hair on a coconut."

The truth and practicality of this theorem has never been quite as urgent as it is today. With the launch of a recent ad campaign encouraging men to shave their balls, the hairy ball theorem has become not merely a principle associated with mathematics, but one that we can and must apply to real life. Just as you can't comb a hairy ball without making it look all bent out of shape, you can't really shave your man groin without expecting something funky to happen when the hair starts fighting back. Hairless balls may sound somewhat appealing if you're a frequent teabagger, but sandpaper-covered stubbly balls definitely do not. Equally unappetizing are balls covered in razorburn or rash due to frequent shaving.

Ball shaving is one sex trend I cannot excited about.

Continue reading "Stop the pube police!" »

Posted by SFBG at 03:54 PM | | | Comments (3)

By Juliette Tang

Queer Arts Fest

The Sex Worker Fest

This is definitely a good month for worthwhile local festivals. The 6th San Francisco Sex Worker Film, Art, & Music Festival officially kicked off this past weekend and promises to be a thrill for both the intellect and the libido. Smart, kinky, and fun, the Sex Worker Fest is a positive and educational week-long extravaganza that occurs in tandem with the ongoing 12th Annual Queer Arts Festival, a whopping month-long festival featuring over 400 artists in over 100 performances taking place in 18 venues all over San Francisco. The only question at this point is how you're possibly going to fit everything into your schedule.

Michelle Tea

On Saturday, the Sex Worker Fest launched with a benefit at a. Muse Gallery (614 Alabama St) to support Radar Lab, a free queer writers retreat looking to accommodate 12 outstanding queer artists by this summer. Hosted by Ali Liebegott, whose IHOP Papers performs the feat of being at once witty and charming and a poignant lesbian coming-of-age novel, and Michelle Tea, prolific author and Guardian contributor whose novel Valencia joins rank with Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero in being good books named after famous San Francisco streets, the benefit featured appearances by literary luminaries Dorothy Allison, ZZ Packer, and Eileen Myles.

Continue reading "June: Sexiest sexy festival month ever" »

Posted by SFBG at 04:01 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 Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex columns here. Email your questions to Andrea: andrea@altsexcolumn.com.

Dear Andrea:

I found this on Craigslist. Please, please stop this poor girl before it's too late! She should hear from a professional that she'd be sacrificing nerve endings to a bunch of dickweeds who are suckers for media standards. And they won't even like her more. God help us.

advice please re labia — w4m

so im hearing mixed reviews from guys about a female's labia. do guys prefer the labia minora to be big or small? because tons of my friends are seeking to have them made smaller (like by a lot) so they look like playboy types etc. is that what guys want? what turns men on? and why? any advice on what to do here for me??

'Nuff said. Thank you.

Love,

A Concerned Citizen

(Seriously.)

Dear Concerned:

Oh, okay. Maybe she'll see this and maybe she won't, but obviously this is a thing, or a Thing, that affects a lot of young women, just as she says. "Tons" of her friends, though? I realize she's posting from L.A., where you have to expect this sort of thing, but the image of busloads of girls she went to high school with or worked with at Hot Topic after school lining up for surgical "correction" is unsettling even me.

So, what is going on here? I've long assumed (this has been going on a while now) that women used to go a lifetime without seeing their own (it takes a mirror and the will to look) or anyone else's labia in great detail unless they had chosen to be midwives or something, in which case they were busy.

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Don't change a Thing" »

Posted by SFBG at 02:01 PM | | |

By Marke B

Sorry, you'll have to go back to church for that ... for now

I hate to rise to the usual nauseating bait of Chronicle writer C.W. Nevius almost as much as I'd have hated to wade into the sheer time-waste of that whole Miss California gay marriage debacle-thingy, but a hilarious oopsie in his latest half-hearted diatribe -- celebrating how something called the Brady Street Neighborhood Coalition "has stopped the Power Exchange, a sex club, from opening on Gough Street" -- popped me a ironic one comparable to those Carrie Prejean pink-panty shots. To whit:

The neighborhood group isn't just a bunch of prudes. The Power Exchange had been located nearby, after all, and no one had a problem with what was going on inside. It was the unruly behavior outside that was troubling.

And yet, a couple paragraphs later:

When the landlord brought a client to another property, he was picketed with one sign announcing that he "rents to a SEX CLUB."

Wait -- I thought they didn't have a problem with that? Or was this just one rotten prune among the supposed non-prudes? It's so hard to tell when sex is involved -- which I guess could have been a slogan for the PE all along.

Power Exchange owner Mike Powers has vowed to continue his relocation efforts elsewhere -- “I can’t let [the city] win now. I have to reopen … because now it’s become a battle where they’re saying Power Exchange isn’t acceptable,” Powers said to the oddly toned Mission Local blog (I wouldn't exactly trust that bracketed insertion -- the city itself had no beef with the joint.) Let's hope his SEX CLUB can find a place in the city where people have SEX and know that part of living here means CLUBS. Let's hope it's soon -- I'll meet you there with some celebratory non-alcoholic bubbly and tales of my favorite adventures in the old medical room.

PS My absolute favorite part of this whole dust-up is that the main complaint of the Brady Coalition folks about the PE's threat to the community is that people were dropping condoms out of their car windows. I'm totally anti-litter, but this calls up in my mind the wonderfully surrealistic vision of a rainbow of rubbers being flung out of Honda Civics up and down the street. Plus, I guess it's a relief from normals going postal about "spreading disease," at least. Safe sex = the new AIDS!

Posted by SFBG at 12:59 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette Tang

Here's a sexual etymology lesson of the day. Did you know that the term "penis" is only 341 years old? Most etymologists agree that the English word "penis" comes from the Latin word for "tail". Before "penis" was adopted as the standard noun for the male sexual organ, English speakers used the term "yard", which the English Dictionary lists as having been used from 1379-1668. Now how about that.

... And while we're on the topic of etymology, I put together a Dick-tionary this morning for your enjoyment. This index has not yet been peer-reviewed, so please do not hesitate to inform us if there are any synonyms you would like us to add to this important list.

Continue reading "An etymology lesson on dongs with supplemental dick-tionary" »

Posted by SFBG at 05:38 PM | | | Comments (4)

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 Marke B.

Hurray, we're back in the 50s again! Hot on the heels of the SF Weekly's "alternative" take on the BDSM community comes this report from the Bay Area Reporter that the SFPD plans to get hard and tough on public nudity and consensual sex acts at that hallowed gay Bay tradition, July's Up Your Alley Fair on Dore Alley, operated by the Folsom Street Fair folks.

Due to the complaints, the police are requiring the fair organizers to develop a more stringent security plan to deal with people who break the law at the event. [SFPD Lieutenant Nicole M.] Greely said simply because someone is attending an enclosed street fair does not mean that laws regarding public nudity and lewd behavior do not apply.

"There is no public sex allowed, that is illegal. Nudity laws still apply and laws against urinating in public still apply," said Greely. "Sometimes things gradually get out of hand and that is what happened here. Last year it got out of control."

....

It is the first time that the police have demanded the Up Your Alley Fair organizers to address public sex acts and lewd behavior in their security plan for the event, said Greely.

Ho hum, doesn't this happen every year around the time the police want to ask for more fair fees? But here's the kicker:

Police also point to the Web site http://www.zombietime.com that documented numerous photos of men performing oral sex, urinating in public, and masturbating from second floor windows overlooking the fair as another reason for their increased vigilance. The site, created by an anonymous local photographer, also questions why the police took no action against the public nudity and sexual behavior at the fair.

Those frankly beautiful pics caused a shit-storm a couple years ago after the Berkeley-based zombietime published the pics and ones of Folsom. They were used to fan anti-gay flames by such organizations as "Americans for Truth About Homosexuality." (Yeah, here's a truth -- YOU'RE GAY) .

Continue reading "Less sex at Dore? SFPD gets hot over crappy muck-monger" »

Posted by SFBG at 08:39 PM | | | Comments (2)

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

Dear Andrea:
Have you heard of a study that analyzed biometric feedback from self-identified male bisexuals, and the notable finding was that the overwhelming majority of these men were in fact homosexual, not bisexual? The conclusion of the study was that "true" male bisexuality is extremely rare. (For what it's worth, I consider myself a "true" male bisexual, but what do I know?)

I also heard about another study from at least 10 years ago that tracked the sexual fantasies of self-identified lesbians, and the surprising result was that some 50 percent of these women actually fantasized about men while doing it with their female partners.

Have you heard of these, and would you care to comment?
Love,

Actually Here!

Dear Here:

I have, of course, and they're all fascinating, partly for the science (which is generally super-simple and not easily misinterpreted) and partly for the reactions in the various communities whenever one of these studies is reported, which are frankly pretty funny.

The "there's no such thing as male bisexuality" studies have received the most press, and the biggest, most offended reactions, but it's not like the researchers at Northwestern University and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto set out to disprove the existence of an entire sexual orientation! All they did was hook up some volunteers to a plethysmograph and show them porn. I think the first researchers were probably as surprised as anyone when the self-identified bi men failed to respond in a recognizably "bi" manner. About three-quarters of the bi men read as completely gay according to their penises (do penises lie?), while the rest were indistinguishable from the self-identified straight guys. There was no recognizable "bi" pattern of arousal, and the subjects seemed overwhelmingly to fall on one or the other end of the Kinsey scale:

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: What do (people) want?" »

Posted by SFBG at 08:49 PM | | | Comments (2)

In which super sexy porn people answer questions -- each week -- from Bay Area locals. View the last installment here
By Justin Juul

Fielding your questions this month is AVN’s current “Transsexual Performer of The Year,” Wendy Williams. Check out some of her stuff and then send some questions here.

SFBG: You’re known for using blogs and video diaries to develop and maintain a really intimate relationship with your fans. Can you tell us a little about them? Are they mostly straight men?

Williams: Yeah, they are. You gotta understand that my fans are attracted to the feminine qualities they see in me and that many of them just consider the dick to be a fetish. Transsexual porn has a very divided fan base, actually. For example, there are people who want to see the transsexual as a bottom only. For them, the fact that she has a dick is just kind of a best-of-both-worlds thing. They would never do it in real life, but they like to see it. I don’t know what that means as far as sexual orientation goes, but I do know that most of my fans identify as straight men. They’re never gonna go to a gay bar and try to pick up guys because they’re not attracted to masculine qualities. They like long hair, breasts, and asses. Obviously, since I have a cock, there’s some question about their actual straightness, but that really doesn’t matter. I’m sure I have bi-sexual fans and I’m sure there are people out there who just want to fuck anything with legs. Whatever. I don’t believe in rigid labels.

SFBG: Yeah, the lines always get blurry when you really start to look at this stuff. I think smart people view sexuality as a continuum that shifts around throughout life. The labels don’t really fit anyone perfectly.

Williams: Yeah, it’s hard not to use the labels sometimes though. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that transsexual porn is marketed to and made for a straight male audience. Ask any gay guy if he’s attracted to transsexuals and you’ll get the same sort of answer: “God, no! I don’t want titties on my back. That’s disgusting!” Transsexuals and drag queens have a place in the gay community, but we’re not sex objects. We are a form of entertainment.

Continue reading "Ask a Porn Star: Wendy Williams on straight lust and sex objects" »

Posted by SFBG at 11:55 AM | | | Comments (1)

By Juliette Tang

Isabella Rossellini is a woman who wears many hats. Actress, model, writer, philanthropist. Now, Rossellini can add "filmmaker specializing in animal pornography" to that already impressive list. "When needed, I can have an erection six feet long and stick it inside a female," exclaims Isabella Rossellini, clothed not in her standard designer fare, but in a paper mache whale costume, of which the defining characteristic is an attachment of a giant pink penis in full erection.

Hallelujah, season two of Green Porno is underway!

Rossellini writes, directs, and lends her acting chops to the quirky Green Porno series, which features the actress, donned in hilarious animal costumes, describing the various mating habits of members of the animal kingdom. The series is winsome and fun, not just because of Rossellini's infectious charm, but also because of the wonderful craftsmanship of Andy Byers, a Brooklyn-based artist who created all the sets and costumes. His costumes are hand-made, crafts-influenced, and seeped in an adult's residual nostalgia for bad elementary school Halloween costumes meticulously made by well-intetioned mothers hungry for Kodak moments. There's also the fact of Rossellini's sexy, ambiguously European accent, with its traces of Italian and Swedish, which lends richness and whimsy to phrases like "Penises, different penises, all trying to get as close as possible to my eggs!" The series is peppered with Rossellini's cheeky and good-natured translations of beastial intercourse, and pronouncements like "we are sequential hermaphrodites" reminds me very much of a Polish biology teacher I once had, who always confused the term "organism" with "orgasm," to jocular result.

Continue reading "Isabella Rossellini and "crazy animal sex"" »

Posted by SFBG at 11:01 AM | | | Comments (4)

Each week Justin Juul highlights a rad upcoming local sexy event

Who: Last year, a Japanese man named Mr. Masanobu Sato came to San Francisco and masturbated in public for nearly ten hours straight. Had he done this in any other city, he might have been thrown in jail or at least laughed at relentlessly. But this is the sexiest place on earth so Mr. Sato got a gold medal instead. He also got a lot of media attention for the toy company he works for, Tenga, Japan’s premier manufacturer of disposable and reusable wank cups. Obviously, becoming a world champion has done wonders for Sato’s career (sales are up, employee-of-the-month certificates are hanging, etc) and so he has no choice but to defend his record. That’s why he’ll *probably be coming back to our city again this year for The Center for Sex and Culture’s annual Masturbate-a-thon. Join Mr. Masanobu Sato, Sister Roma, Fellatio Brown, Dr. Carol Queen, and other famous wankers as they play with their junk in the name sex positivism. Exhibitionists, porn-addicts, and totally normal people like you and me are encouraged to ogle, vote, and even participate in this year’s exhibition/contest.

Continue reading "Peepshow: The Masturbate-A-Thon cometh" »

Posted by SFBG at 06:10 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Juliette "TMI?" Tang

Cranberry prevention?

I am a chronic sufferer of urinary tract infections. Luckily I have a great doctor who has my local Walgreens on speed dial for the days when I call her crying into the phone for Cipro, otherwise I'd still be wailing on the floor at the moment, rather than spreading the good word on how you can avoid my predicament.

It helps knowing, in a sick way, that no matter how much pain I'm in, I'm not alone. For women, there's no way around it: more than 50% of us will suffer the agony of a urinary tract infection at some point. And most of the time, this loathsome incursion burrows its way up our urethrae and into our lives, without warning, when we are sexually active. Urinary tract infections are the bane of an active sex life. They are the second most common type of infection in the body, and account for 10 million hospital visits each year (plus 1.5 hospitalizations, and $1 billion in health care costs). Along with unplanned pregnancy, STDs, and shameful flashbacks to what happened last Saturday at the Knock Out, UTIs are another way the universe has of zapping some of the fun out of sex. Luckily, unlike children or other STDs (and it is questionable whether a UTI even counts as an STD), a UTI doesn't last forever -- though when confronted with what feels like someone taking broken glass to the inside of your hoo-ha, forever will feel like a relative term.

Continue reading "A Hip Girl's Guide to UTIs" »

Posted by SFBG at 03:14 PM | | | Comments (0)

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

Dear Readers:

These are perennial body parts questions, and I feel I would be somewhat remiss if I didn't re-answer them every few years. Here are some that have been hanging around waiting for me.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I once tried for half an hour putting my index finger about two inches inside my girlfriend's vagina, pressing with a "come hither motion" and simultaneously pressing the mound from outside. Unfortunately my partner did not experience any extra pleasure. Maybe I have to try again and again?
Love,

Willing

Dear Will:

Yes, yes, very funny. I'm not entirely sure what she was experiencing, but from your phrasing, which could have been cut and pasted from any one of a thousand how-to Web sites, I think you may have been proceeding a bit by rote there. Rather than printing out some stranger's directions, how about following hers?

There are plenty of women who don't have much of the spongy erectile tissue surrounding the urethra and the front of the vagina that we've come, for convenience's sake, to call the G-spot. These women can lie there all day receiving simultaneous come-hither motions and external pressure and only manage to get kind of annoyed with you. If your girlfriend is one of them, I would not suggest "trying again and again" unless you want her to lean forward and swat the top of your head with the TV remote.

You can probably determine whether she is G-spot enabled by letting her guide you. Since the G-spot is, inconveniently, not actually a "hot button," but a collection of tissues sensitive to the touch under certain but not all circumstances, I cannot tell you exactly how to operate it. I'd start once she's already well turned-on, though, and without impatience or, indeed, goal-orientation. Just kind of slip in there when things are already going well and keep your eyes on her face while you try a little deeper or a little closer in, a little harder and a little softer, a little ... oh, you get the picture.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

My penis is curved a little. Is that normal, and if not what can I do to straighten it?

Love,

Upwards

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Parts is parts" »

Posted by SFBG at 07:47 PM | | | Comments (0)

In which super sexy porn people answer questions -- each week -- from Bay Area locals
By Justin Juul

Wendy Williams is an award-winning movie star with nearly a half-a-million films under her belt. But that doesn’t mean this month’s featured celebrity is some shallow Hollywood glamour snob… quite the opposite, actually. In fact, it only takes a second of conversation with Williams to realize that she’s really just a down-home southern girl who enjoys the simple things in life.

Williams likes traveling, shopping, advanced social networking and, um…interracial gangbangs. Okay okay okay! So maybe Williams isn’t exactly what you’d call normal, but that’s why she’s so much more intriguing than other media starlets known for dropping their vowels and dipping their thongs. While traditional southern belles like Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, and Brooke Hogan waste their/our time making crappy music, popping pills, and collecting the worst sunglasses you’ve ever seen in your life, Williams keeps it real and focuses her energy on something we can all relate to: steamin’ hot tranny sex. What I’m saying here is that trans porn is better than reality TV and that mainstream pop icons have less talent than the people you see on Fleshbot everyday. I’m also saying that Williams is much cooler than all the girls I mentioned above because she’s an interesting individual with a mind of her own and those other girls are pretty much the opposite of that (although Britney got pretty cool there for a second).

Anyway! Enough with the half-assed shot at social commentary, right? Here’s the Wendy Williams story in a nutshell:

Continue reading "Ask a Porn Star: Introducing Wendy Williams, trans sex superstar" »

Posted by SFBG at 01:55 PM | | | Comments (6)

The second part of a conversation with Justin Juul about Dr. Rix's work with the Ex Ex Gay movement -- and the answer to that eternal question, "What, exactly, is a sexologist?" Read part 1 here.

Dr. Rix, left, with partner

SFBG: So, after all of this, do your parents still believe you can just switch it up and find yourself a wife?
Rix: Yeah, I think they do. They blur behavior and attraction, you know? Like, they would never say this, but they seem to think that if I could just keep my dick in my pants, I could learn to be normal again. They’re just old, man...and from a totally different time and place.

SFBG: How do they feel about your sexology work?
Rix: You know, they made a point to give me a pat on the back when I graduated with my degree, which is really all I can ask. The thing about my parents is that I know they love me the best they know how. And that has to be good enough because I realize that I’ve been the theological dilemma of their lives. Here’s an example: my sister died of a really rare heart disease when I was sixteen and my mom later told me that her death was easier to handle than my coming out. She apologized later, but still, it’s just obvious that life choices are never going to be easy for them. As far as my sexology stuff goes, they manage to be nice about it, but I don’t think they’re thrilled.

SFBG: So what is a sexologist, exactly?
Rix: Well, if you look around at all the problems in society these days, it seems like the majority of them have to do with pleasure-phobia, sexophobia…just a general fear of following our desires. As a sexologist, I do what I can to help people accept themselves. To answer your question, sexology is the study of what people do sexually and how they feel about it. There are only a handful of schools that award degrees in sexology. You’d be amazed at how little sexual research is done these days. I mean, scientists don’t even know what comes out of females when they ejaculate.

Continue reading "Ex-gay, no way pt. 2: Sexologist Dr. Jallen Rix talks about surviving the ex-gay movement" »

Posted by SFBG at 06:12 PM | | | 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)

By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex columns here.

› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I'm not 40, like the author of the "40 and Frustrated" letter, but I'm afflicted with another "less than desirable" characteristic: color. Oh, and a bit of meat on my bones, although that's never been much of a problem. I'm a black woman and I date(d) all sorts of men. Online has never been the right place for me to meet men because, in a field of redheads and green eyes, men pass right by my photo. I got absolutely no interest except from men I am not interested in. And if I happened to get an interested male inquiry, I too found that the communication petered out quickly.

Several years back, I moved to the city on my own. Finally — no roommates, no significant other, just me. My friends were in relationships or newly married and I had to find activities that allowed me to have fun and meet single men. When I went out with friends, I was always just another girl in the crowd.

I got the best results when I began going out by myself, walking into an establishment where I knew no one, ordering a drink, sitting at the bar, and looking desirable and approachable with a book or a snack. A month ago, I even had a CL Missed Connections ad placed for me by a nice Irish man after visiting a local pub and having a burger and beer. It is a 99.9 percent given that if you are female and alone, a male will walk up to you and begin a conversation. Despite your age, your looks, your size, your ethnicity, if a man sees you alone, without a crew of other females to choose from, he will feel compelled to find out your story and see if he has a shot with you.

Two years ago, out by myself, I met a man I had eyed a few times over the years. We chatted. We joked. We got to know each other. Two-and-a-half years later, we're still together.

We both have an independent nature, which still leads me to frequent places on my own. Each and every time, I am approached. I'm attractive, but I'm not all that, so this is something any woman can do. I feel that we, as women, need to step it up a notch and realize that we need to depend mostly on ourselves and not our friends or the Internet to hook us up or place us in situations where we'll meet people.

Continue reading "A little luck, a little pluck" »

Posted by SFBG at 03:56 PM | | | Comments (0)

Photos by Darwin Bell. Text by Marke B.

Logan McCree, the inky "it" porn boy of the moment (whither Francois Sagat?) accepts his "Performer of the Year 2009" award. His current studio, Raging Stallion, swept the awards again this year.

Those ravishing Hungarians, the Visconti Triplets, on the GayVN red carpet. The won nothing.

Well! The sprawling, exhaustive GayVNs ("the Oscars of gay porn") pretty much swallowed the weekend whole for many of us. The stars! The awards! The tragedies! The complete winners list is here.

All in all, though, the entire thing was pretty relaxed and entirely fun -- moreso than I expected. There was even a charity aspect, with a pricey pre-ceremony "Porn Brunch" at the LookOut in the Castro attracting a number of curious onlookers, rabid fans, and stellar anal wattage for a taping of salacious and sometimes humorous Webisodic adventure "The Tim and Roma Show" -- raising some bug bucks for StopAIDS. I wish there had been more food, but the "bottomless" (ha!) mimosas soon made me forgot that I was probably the only hungry person there.

Logan, pre-win, on the couch at the LookOut

Logan's man helps him show off his assets

The endless night before had seen porn studio "reception" (double ha!) parties all over the Castro, in which boneriffic stars got very "up close and personal" with fans and photogs alike. Snapper Darwin Bell was there until the bitter, bitter end. Below is one more shot of my current threefold obsession, the Visconti Triplets, and then after the jump -- and so, SO NSFW -- perennial porno sunshine boy (and media mogul!) Barrett Long demonstrates his tongue-tickling talent for autofellatio. It took a couple tries, but we stuck with him!

Continue reading "Photofabulous GayVNs (NSFW)" »

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

By Danica Li

Ang Lee and James Schamus have, in tandem, produced and directed nearly a dozen movies. They count between them a trio of Taiwanese family dramas, a civil war epic, an Austen-derived austerely British comedy of manners, an encounter with the Hulk, and a Chinese-language film about flying warriors and a green sword of destiny that grossed a whopping 200 million bucks worldwide. The duo took the stage at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall recently, in conversation with the Berkeley English Department's Professor Jeffrey Knapp. The premiere topic of conversation for the first half-hour? Sex.

I diagnose this as program coordinators On the Same Page's gesture at edginess and being "with it" -- or at least as an effort at warding off the buttoned-up stodginess and rehearsed, by-rote deliveries that have plagued past presentations (see: Stephen Hawking, Garry Wills). For starters, the audience was treated to a presentation clip in which a series of explicit splices from 2007's Lust, Caution were cross-cut with characters from Lee's other films expressing distaste and affecting grimaces, a dynamic that ended with a raunchily symbolic big bang (taken from 2003’s Hulk). It was enough to provoke a smattering of laughs from the audience, and was an easy enough segue into the first question: Why do so many of Lee's films involve sex, as it were?

An unguarded moment from Ang Lee's 2007 film Lust, Caution

Continue reading "Ang Lee: Let’s talk about sex?" »

Posted by SFBG at 02:30 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Andrea Nemerson. Read more alt.sex here

Dear Andrea:

I've always wanted to have a threesome and my wife is willing, but she would prefer to do it with her first boyfriend. At first I was all for it, but I'm getting more concerned that it might rekindle an old flame. Otherwise, I wouldn't care if she had sex with a different guy every week, as long as she was safe and came home to me. I'm not jealous. I have a very high sex drive and could still have sex five or six times a day if time allowed. I love my wife and I know people are going to say if that was true, why would I let her have sex with another man? I say, variety! Spice of life!

It seems that her ex and I are similar as far as sex goes. She has only been with four partners in 20 years, including me. She has always believed in being dedicated to one person, and until I asked her about this, she never thought of straying.

She feels that if she were to do the threesome, she would prefer to do it with her ex. They didn't part on bad terms, just grew apart with careers and family. She said she would contact him if I wanted, but I'm starting to worry. She says I'm her soulmate, but I'm not sure I should put our relationship on the line for a fantasy.

Love,

Wanting, but Worried

Dear W:

The best way to avoid having people say stupid things about your private life is to actually have a private life. People do talk, and most of what they say is pretty stupid.

I do admit to feeling a bit uneasy about partners who profess no feelings of jealousy whatsoever — do they actually, um, care? — but there's a lot of variation in people's baseline territoriality levels. I won't think ill of you as a husband unless you let on that really you don't give a damn what she's up to, or whether she's (re)developing feelings for the ex, or what her intentions are toward you. At that point, you get demoted from husband to acquaintance with benefits, and you lose your right to vote on what she does with anyone. Since you're plenty engaged and plenty involved and plenty affectionate, though, I have nothing mean to say to you.

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: A third in the hand" »

Posted by SFBG at 08:11 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)

In which super sexy porn people answer questions -- each week -- from Bay Area locals
Mediated by Justin Juul

Fielding your questions this month is local writer/porn star, Stephen Boyer. Check out some of his movies/pics here and an excerpt from his upcoming novel here. Read our 2008 interview with Boyer here. Read the last installment of Ask a Porn Star here

James N: How would legalizing prostitution change the lives of sex workers?

Stephen Boyer: Legalizing prostitution would help prostitutes because they wouldn’t fear being labeled a criminal. They would be empowered and able to take control of their situations better. Plus it would do away with the hypocrisy we are currently indulging in as a society. Take the homophobic Ted Haggard for instance, the priest that was caught with a male escort and forced to leave his church and town. Well, Haggard has since gone on television and has publicly admitted that what he did was a “sin,” but as far as I know he never faced any legal penalties despite the fact he was on drugs committing an illegal act. However, low-end prostitutes are being booked all the time and being shoved down the hellish rabbit hole that is our present legal system. I’m for keeping everyone out of that mess!

Gerry H: How do things change when you tell people that you’ve done porn?

Continue reading "Ask a Porn Star: masturbation and legal prostitution" »

Posted by Marke B. at 05:44 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex columns here

› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I'm ready to go live in a cave. It's been two years since I've dated. Partly I backed off from the scene, and partly I'm not receiving much interest. I think I'm smart, approachable, creative, "together," nice, and passably cute. It's starting to affect my self-confidence.

I joined eHarmony ($120!) and nerve.com, solicited friends' input on my profiles, and followed up on every match. I got one eHarmony date (great but not local) and rarely heard back from anyone. I try to e-mail one guy a day. Either they don't answer or our communication peters out soon after I e-mail. The ones who really get me seem very interested, ask me out, then drop it when I accept.

Why? Is this a Mars/Venus thing? Maybe online just isn't my venue? I do several activities that attract single guys, but haven't led to much — except maybe embarrassment on my part when I show interest and get a brush-off. Maybe try going through friends again? That worked in the past.

I just turned 40 and would like a partner. Mostly I've been solo, and that really sucks.
Love,

Forty & Frustrated

Dear F&F:

Before you go live in a cave, you might consider something a little less drastic, like living in a smaller, less brutally competitive city far from the coasts. It's an idea.

Barring that, we have to subject your online interactions to the scrutiny of a girlfriend panel. Ideally these would be your girlfriends — they could make far more specific suggestions, like lose that mullet or stop telling everyone about your rectal fistula. But if you don't have a panel, you can borrow mine. I convened one for you.

Irina: The phenomenon of guys initiating and then vanishing as soon as you try to make a date is very familiar, and probably has nothing to do with her. I could theorize all day, but when it comes down to it, they're not ready to actually connect with people, so fuck 'em. Next!

Continue reading "Alt.sex.column: Cave woman" »

Posted by Marke B. at 07:35 PM | | | Comments (0)

By Marke B.

Fine, yes, we're all wearing out our French tips awaiting Borat comic genius Sascha Baron Cohen's new Austrian thuper-gay fashion disaster epic flick, Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt -- and after a wee hits-reel preview at SXSW in Austin and a couple of test screenings deep in the bowels of Harvey Weinstein, the press is picking up on every juicy detail it can squeeze out of attendees.

Like this tantalizing and/or vomit inducing piece just posted by Christopher Beam to Slate, in which one of the test screeners describes a near miss of giant-hairy-backed-dude-nude-wrestling proportions. In the Bruno movie, Cohen wheedles Libertarian leader and noted gerbil Ron Paul into an potentially compromising situation:

Continue reading "Ron Paul in queer Libertarian sex nonscandal" »

Posted by Marke B. at 07:41 PM | | | Comments (3)

By Marke B.

OK, all this may be a little tired by now, but I'm still in full agreement with Kimberly Chun's expert take down of Katy "UR So Gay" Perry from January of last year. That was published before Perry's odiously catchy "I Kissed a Girl" became impossible to escape last summer -- the ditty managed to "have it both ways," heh, playing both anti-gay conservatives and LGBTs for maximum chart effect. That's clever, but the song's lame sentiment (kissing girls turns my boyfriend on -- lesbians are only here for my amusement!) still makes my stomach churn.

The parodies came swift and mercilessly, from "I Kissed a Squirrel" (available in many versions) to "I Kissed a Granny" (yeesh!) to "I Kissed a Dog." Oh, enough already, YouTube Nation.

And then, of course, teh gay. I should have known there would be an onslaught of over-the-top backlash when drag superstar Lady Bunny unleashed "I Licked a Girl" on the world last year (first minute below):

Lady Bunny, "I Licked a Girl" at Southern Decadence

Yay, overly familiar gynophobia! Still, it could all be called hilarious if it wasn't a trend. Now, the pendulum has swung back, with emo boys embracing the kissing hysteria, and a flood of "I Kissed a Boy" guyliner-bedecked parodies, headed up by primo "hip" parody purveyors Cobra Starship's version from a Fall Out Boy (!) mixtape. I knew I was gonna have to surrender my critical faculties and just go with the flow when one of my smartest gay friends told me he was completely Lady GaGa for the boy in the video, followed by my bf Hunky Beau's comment: "Oh goodie, he takes his shirt off." At least the dood-singer Gabe lipsyncher (a reader informs us in the that this is a fan vid, not Cobra Starship itself) plays with the whole baseball-bat-bashing theme a little, even if he can't quite bring himself to admit the "he liked it" more than just wanting to "start shit."

Cobra Starship, "I Kissed A Boy"

So much confliction! Smash! Twist! Contort! Feint! Poor thing. I guess my question is, is kissing really that big a deal? And also, with the super-prominence of porn availability in the Internet age, has kissing become the final frontier of sexual boundaries -- the last retainer of intimacy now that all other sex acts have been publicized/commodified? Janet Jackson's boob, Paris and Britney's flashed beavers, and then Katy's emo lesbo-liplock spawn. Well, I guess whatever automatically short circuits "fag" in the comments section these days is maybe a good thing?

After the jump, an explosion of "I Kissed a Boys," with various degrees of homophobic liberation. Thanks, Katy!

Continue reading "Too many str8 boys kissing, maybe" »

Posted by Marke B. at 04:43 PM | | | Comments (6)

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)

In Which Super Sexy Porn People Answer Questions -- each week -- From Bay Area Locals
Mediated by Justin Juul

Fielding your questions this month is local writer/porn star, Stephen Boyer. Check out some of his movies/pics here and an excerpt from his upcoming novel here. Read our 2008 interview with Boyer here, and the last installment of Ask a Porn Star here.

James N: Do you enjoy the sex you have on camera or do you just sort of block it out and then count the money?

Boyer: I enjoy it for the most part. I got into the industry to pay rent. Then I started branching out more with my sexuality. Then I found Kink.com and a world full of toys I could explore and that is when sex got really fun and interesting. The great thing about porn, for me, was that it allowed me to try sexual positions and feel sensations that required toys that I couldn’t afford because I was poor. Doing it on video both paid my rent and gave me the opportunity to have sexual experiences with attractive contemporaries.

Elan F: What is the one thing you hate the most about sex?

Continue reading "Ask a Porn Star: Sex with Stephen Boyer" »

Posted by SFBG at 12:10 PM | | | Comments (6)

By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex here.

Dear Readers:

It's a dull, drippy week in California and when the weather gets like this a writer's fancy turns to tentacles.

Manifestly untrue, I know, but mine did. Recently while researching something else (the famous Sybian ride-on sex toy, the one whose dealer claims it will "cause a female to literally explode on it" — I hate it when that happens!) I came upon a repository of tentacle porn, and boy did that take me back. Once upon a time I had somehow managed never to hear of tentacle porn until one night when I was hanging out with my friend Annalee Newitz, the high tech high-weirdness expert and she was all, "Oh, blah blah blah this weird thing and that weird thing and tentacles" and I was all, "Wait, what was that last thing again?"

It's tentacle porn. It's Japanese. Extremely Japanese. Innocent schoolgirl types, drawn anime/hentai fashion with giant eyes and giant boobs and teensy little bodies clad in teensy little schoolgirl uniforms, until they're not, get non-consensually multipenetrated by ... tentacles. How did you think that sentence was going to end?

Anyway, I got the idea and I stored it away and brought it out occasionally to amuse or shock people and I totally forgot I'd still never seen any myself until I went looking for something else and somehow stumbled over the tentacles (another "I hate it when that happens" thing) and it all came back to me.

It's the dullest thing ever. I'd seen enough hentai (anime porn) to expect this (it tends to be weirdly slow and standardized and repetitive and badly dubbed). It's not the easiest sort of porn to project yourself into, even for a person who likes porn more than I do. And that's the stuff without tentacles. The odd thing about the tentacles, beyond the fact that they exist at all (they were invented to get around restrictions on depictions of non-tentacular intercourse), is that they are so ... uninspired. They never seem to be attached to an interesting monster with any motivations besides rape, and they have a very limited repertoire of sexual acts. They're very "bad teenage date" — stick it in, stick it in, stick it in, but unlike a bad teenage date, they can do all the sticking-in at the same time. Whoopty-do.

Here's what I do like about tentacle porn:

Continue reading "alt.sex.column: Shokushu Goukan!" »

Posted by SFBG at 09:03 PM | | | Comments (1)

By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex.columns here.