New Years Resolution: be my own megaphone

I'm no good at promoting myself. Never have been. It's not that I don't value my own work--it's that I'd rather other people like it and do the advertising/word of mouth/buzz for me. I don't know if it's modesty that keeps me from pushing my brand, or narcissism that makes me think others should recognize my genius and take care of it, or some bizarre mixture of the two. Or perhaps it's just laziness--I work very hard and when I'm done, I don't feel much like spending the rest of my energy on promoting. But whatever the case may be, it's come to my attention, via a very determined photographer who found me on ModelMayhem and then spent an entire day Google searching everything about me on the internet (this sounds a bit creepy perhaps, but it's not, he's actually a fantastic guy), that my body of creative work is actually pretty goddamn extensive. I never have time to do all the things I want to do, but when I had someone else point it out to me, it became clear that I still do a LOT. And have done a lot. And I should really be showing it all off more.

Last year I had a tarot card reading from a dear friend who is excellent at what he does. I wrote down what he told me and let it sit in a stack of papers on my desk for a long time. At the turn of the new year, I unearthed it and glanced over it, and here's what it says in huge letters at the top:

MAKE YOUR VOICE LOUDER.

It's become clear that, while sometimes others are kind enough to take up the banner and do my promoting for me, even then they could not possibly be as dedicated to my cause as I am. Hell, even the people I've hired to do this (read: literary and entertainment industry agents) can't be bothered to do it. Last year the team of agents I'd been working with unceremoniously dumped me after they'd decided that I was not, in fact, going to crap out some piece of sparkly magenta chick lit they could stamp some "Sex and the City" reference on and sell, sell, sell. They weren't interested in promoting me or helping me, just making a dime on me. And I wasn't interested enough in promoting what I actually was interested in making to do the work myself. And now I'm agentless--very freeing, in its way, but not really ideal.

The point here is, it's time for me to start taking myself seriously. I write under no fewer than four different names, some in print and some online. I write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I do interviews, long thought-pieces, columns, product reviews, DVD reviews, and coverage of events in New York and beyond. I draw, paint, and curate. I do poetry readings live and on video, and translate poetry, and network with people from all over the world to keep it all going. Shit, I can sing. And hell, I even do some modeling for fun. I am a goddamn renaissance woman. But nobody f-ing knows about it.

So here's my resolution for 2012: MAKE MY VOICE LOUDER. I'm getting a mothafuckin' website. I'm migrating this blog to it, and I'm putting up photos of my visual work, and I'm linking to my art show, my McSweeney's column, my articles, my fiction, my poetry, and maybe even my photos. I want it up and running by the beginning March so people interested in the art show can find out as much about me as possible.

So, yeah. RAWR. Expect it.

Misused Quotes and Misunderstood Quips

I'm casting about for what to say right now and it's not coming easily. I feel like no matter what I end up writing down will come out wrong and upset someone out there. But if I don't try to write about this I'll be upset. So I guess it's worth a shot.

I don't know the exact context of the famous Voltaire and/or Evelyn Beatrice Hall quotation, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It's so overused I feel as if it's got to be some sort of sham that gets misappropriated all the time, but I'm going to go ahead and nab it today because it fits so neatly into this situation. The situation being something along the lines of the following:

One of the writers at a publication I'm closely connected to wrote an article that has gotten a lot of very negative attention lately and that publication has decided to stand behind the author rather than taking down the offensive material. There has been a lot of noise made about how offensive this material is, and that noise is not exactly wrong. As someone who is very intimately connected with the publication and thus the material, I feel terrible that it's out there and upsetting people. I am far, far too sensitive for this stuff. In any situation in which someone is upset by something, I almost always take the blame and the hurt feelings very much upon myself. I get upset. I blame myself. I feel absolutely terrible and try to make everyone in the situation happy again.

But sometimes that doesn't work and sometimes it's not even possible. And sometimes it's not even right. The offending material made jokes about two very serious topics: racial stereotypes and rape. They were made absolutely in jest, and the writer, being one of the sweetest people I've ever known, didn't expect anyone to take them seriously. But some people did. And here we enter into that big nebulous grey cloud of foggy moral responsibilities around humor and sensitive topics. Where are the lines drawn in this murky morass of bruised feelings, innocuous humor, insidious inequality and ignorance, and morality? These are subjects that people spend their whole lives trying to understand, but no one in their right mind can claim to have all the answers to.

So here I am, watching this meant-to-be-funny article being taken as very, very not funny. And I'm asking myself all these questions about what's more important here: the offense people have taken to the article, or the right of the author to say it in the first place. The feelings of people who see no humor in touchy issues, or the importance of free speech? Vast, sweeping overstatements I want to make to defend the article, or taking an honest look at how these things really affect our society?

On the one hand, I believe absolutely that sexual assault and racism are deadly serious topics. When I read this article in HuffPo from Eve Ensler today, I almost wept. I myself, and a huge majority of the women I know, are all victims of sexual assault. It is a force of unspeakable evil in our world, and it is perpetuated through silence, sexism, and, yes, mockery. Making the issue of sexual assault seem less important or earth-shattering than it really is in a way defeats everything I stand for as a writer: I believe that the rights of all people are damaged by the pervasiveness of rape in the world today. And it makes me sick to think that I might contribute in any way to that pervasiveness.

The same is true of racism. A few months ago I made the definitive decision to stop reviewing any adult materials that come my way that make use of racial stereotypes as a selling point: I won't review Cougars Like it Black or any of the other silly stuff that feeds into racial stereotyping in the adult industry. It's needless and damaging and gross. And I don't believe that mocking racial stereotypes is a universally good thing--it can be just as damaging as bald-facedly perpetuating those stereotypes.

So I hate to sit by and watch this all happen. I hate to think that people are reading this material and thinking that the people I work with might actually espouse these vile notions. But I also have to ask: what's the point of humor and satire and public writings if not to give some air, some levity, some space to the topics that so offend us?

I absolutely don't love it that neo-Nazis can go around saying awful things about other groups of people. I find it disgusting that some conservatives say hateful things about women who want reproductive rights. I don't love it that there are places on the internet where people can voice their bigotry. But would I rather live in a place where things that offend people are censored? Would I rather live in an eerie silence in which jokes can't be made because they might be offensive? It's the silence we shroud certain topics in, like sex and rape and race, that often does more damage than the words themselves being uttered, called out, decried, and discussed, isn't it? Or am I just making myself feel better?

I have a friend who was so annoyed by a stand-up comic that, last week, he walked up onto the stage at the club and punched the comic in the face for his racist comments about the bartender. I'm certainly not promoting violence in public places on a whim, but I think there's a bit of an analogy here: sometimes it's maybe better to let the unpleasant things you don't like be said and then express your dislike... than it is to tell the person who said it that they had no right to say it or to try to revoke that person's speech. Maybe it's better to deal with the consequences of free speech and to let its not-so-positive iterations be platforms for discussion than to revoke things that are done. As Stephen King said once, "What's done is done and can never be undone, as the Irish have been saying for centuries, and which just goes to show what assholes they are."

Or somesuch. But you see what I'm saying? I'm not sure if I do. But I think the Voltaire or whomever quote above says a lot. This whole thing makes me want to curl up and cry. I don't like it that it happened. But it did. So let's talk about it.

Two Totally Terrific Questions, Part II

Dale asked: New follower. Discovered you on twitter and have started to follow your blog. I absolutely loved your piece on you former military friend! Questions. Do you have a book out? You mentioned somewhere that you had both a girlfriend and boyfriend. Do you still (or at all) think of yourself as bisexual? Looking forward to reading from your archive. Thanks.

Hello, Dale. Thank you for following my blog! Due to the nature of what I write about, I don’t get many comments (I think people are hesitant to take part in some of these questions in case their wife/mom/whoever finds out… or maybe just nobody’s reading… but I’ll take the former option), so it’s always good to get feedback!

As to your questions:

1)      No, I don’t have a book out, but I am currently (and slowly) working on two! One will be fiction (probably a graphic novel) and the other will be more essay-based. I’m so glad to hear you’re interested, because I’ve been needing a kick in the pants to jump-start my work after the summer craziness subsides. This might be it!

2)      As for my orientation, that’s a great question. I’ve been pondering it lately. I’d like to consider myself queer, in that I don’t go for men and/or women but am turned on by certain people regardless of their gender. However, as I have yet to place myself squarely inside the queer community or indeed have any lovers who identify on the queer scale, I can’t say I’m certain of this. But I will say that I love women, and men, and androgyny turns me on like woah. I have quite a thing for 70’s era David Bowie, genderqueers, many types of bois, and femme men. So yes, bisexual is a start. J

Shameless Self-Endorsement (and India Summer, too!)

Well, hey, if I'm on a "not really thinking but posting anyway" kick... Let's do more self-promotion and links! Weehoo!

1) I did a really fun interview with the hyper-hot, super-spiritual, highly horny, and impressively articulate India Summer for WHACK! Magazine that published today. I think anyone who reads this blog will like it. A sampling:


WHACK! You’re big in feature films and are one of the industry’s most prized actresses. Did you ever act before you got into the biz?

INDIA SUMMER Can I tell a fart joke here?

WHACK! You mentioned once in an interview that you want to make your own sexual statement without boring, banal, thrown-together sets. If you wrote a sexual manifesto, what would you call it?

INDIA SUMMER In that interview question I was probably just shooting for having high production values and avoiding cookie cutter scenarios in anything I produced, (easier said than done) but if I wrote my sexual manifesto what would it be titled?
“Make Fuck Not Hate,” or
“I Fuck Therefore I Am,” or
”How to Have Mind Altering Sex,” or
“The Fucking Truth,” or
“How To Experience Guilt-Free Sex by Transcending Your Social Conditioning,” or
“I’d Rather Be Fucking,” or
“Who Said Love and Sex Have to go Together?”
But seriously maybe “Enlightened Sexuality.”

2) I absolutely hate sharing videos of myself, but I'm rather proud of this one, so without further ado, my reading at Bluestockings Books in NYC this weekend as part of LitCrawl NYC, on behalf of Sean Labrador Y Manzano's anthology, Conversations at the Wartime Cafe:

Conversations at the Wartime Cafe

I just returned from reading a short piece I wrote for inclusion in my fellow McSweeney's alum Sean Labrador Y Manzano's anthology, Conversations At the Wartime Cafe. A few of us east-coast scribblers included in the anthology got together and read at Bluestockings Books on the LES here in New York. Our pieces centered around our experiences as writers during the War on Terror. It's not the kind of thing I like to glamorize often by talking or writing about. My life as an adult has centered around New York City, and I have been against the wars raging in the Middle East since day one. I saw the towers fall here and it shaped my life, and it still does. But it seems almost disrespectful to talk about it that way sometimes. Commodifying the experience of terror. Sentimentalizing something that is real. Making ceramic plates and conservative mantras on the pain and confusion of that day. Building wars of aggression on the backs of the suffering.

But writing the pieces for Sean's anthology and tonight reading them in a room full of New Yorker's on the almost-ten-year anniversary... I came to realize just how much the twin towers falling and the aftermath that continues to drag itself along on blood-stained feet has shaped me. The images of bodies falling from a hundred stories up when I'd just learned to call New York City home ten years ago--I hadn't realized until now just how burned into my memory those silhouettes are. How much my reality as an adult has been the constant reference to that one moment.

I've felt for a long time that we were crybabies about the whole thing. Not that it wasn't horrible; it was. Not that I don't mourn those who died; I do. But the number of lives our country has taken away from the rest of the world in retribution, holding up that attack ten years ago as a shield against blame for the wrongs we have committed... it makes me sick to think of it. And so I often don't. I avoid thinking about the profound influence that these things have had on me and my life. But right now, sitting here alone and running a fever and somewhat confused, it's washing over me. This is my reality and has been since I was eighteen: that there is nothing just here. There is and never has been an easy black-and-white in war or in politics. There is always that grey cloud of asbestos and fear, even in the brilliant fall morning light, because simplicity was lost long ago, sometime before we knew how to write it down. I often feel that my generation is diffuse, dissolute, disillusioned. That we lost our sense of magic on that morning. But really, I don't think we ever had it to begin with. Really, I think every generation must find this truth in one way or another. We simply have a moment in our collective memory to point to as the root of our childhoods falling away into ideologies clashing, stock markets flopping like dead fish, religions exploding. But what's funny is that in the world we live in, where we are at once more connected than ever and yet further from one another, separated by each other by the screens of our gadgets while tethered to the realities of what our military is doing abroad displayed on those same screens... that we have chosen to largely avoid banding together under that moment. We are too cool, or something. We see the grey in it and we can't figure out how to stand side by side, hand in hand, to find a common emotion here. We clutch our smart phones and can't look each  other in the eye, having come of age in a time when there is no common ground that is sure footing. It's all slippery, it's all subjective, it's all relative, and there is no real comfort there. But is adulthood a place where there can be comfort?

I'll read again tomorrow afternoon, with Sean Labrador Y Manzano, Nick Johnson, Britt Melewski, Keely Hyslop, M.G. Martin, Annie Wilner, Molly Kat, Soumeya Bendimerad, and Tess Patalano. Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn. Would love to see some friendly faces.

Behemoth

Well, if it's not a writer's duty to post videos of herself reading her writing, then I don't know what is. But... man, I really hate watching myself on video. And I hate to think other people might see it. But that's what video is FOR, and I DID record this video for the Poetry Brothel of New York as my character Fanny Firewater... I just... now that it's up all I can think of is what I should've done differently. Ain't it always the way... Ah well, next time will be different!

Anyway, it's a little sexy but mostly just poem-y. Enjoy!

Quartier Rouge: Behemoth by Lynsey G from Quartier Rouge on Vimeo.

Naomi Wolf Annoys Me Again

Oh, Naomi. We are gonna just keep doing this, aren’t we? Ah, well, why not? After all, every superhero needs a supervillain in order to really thrive. I’m not sure, in this situation, which one is which, but we’re surely diametrically opposed, and I know I’m super, so we may as well get some cool Spandex outfits and go for it.

Look, I kind of see what you’re saying about Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin as having legitimate claims to feminism as legitimate as anyone else. Far be it from me to try to take the name of feminism away from anyone. I totally agree with you that the feminist cause has largely been represented and championed by left-leaning thinkers since the 60’s, and as such is often thought of as a liberal-only cause. And this certainly alienates more conservative women who value things like marriage, family, militarism, and etc. And that, it’s true, is a real shame: feminism, as you say, is about personal choice and freedom, not just for the liberals amongst us but also for everyone: male, female, trans, and everyone else. Feminism is about all of us being equal and autonomous members of our society, whether tattooed queer punks from San Francisco or soccer moms from Iowa, and it’s in a way fabulous that more conservative women are taking up the word and cause in their particular way.

But the thing that pisses me off about conservative “feminists” like you, Naomi--and I say this because your line about finding Michelle Bachmann "slightly unhinged" is, I'm sure, true, but I can think of no-word for a knee-jerk reactionary anti-porn "feminist" like yourself that suits better than "conservative"--and particularly about Tea Party women in the national spotlight, is that the rhetoric they spout is not at its root about equality, freedom, and personal choice. It is about the superiority of certain choices and selected freedoms over others. Women should by all means be free to vocally not support abortion and contraception and relationship models if they don’t approve of these things for their own lives and situations. But feminism, at least as far as I understand it, is not a mantle to pick up and wave around and use as a blanket for prejudice and intolerance of other people’s decisions. Feminism is about respect for the values we share and equal respect for the differences amongst us. Bachmann and Palin and Wolf all argue their points from the position of a soapbox that looks down upon people who dissent or value different choices. They aim to tear down the legitimacy of other people’s opinions not because those opinions might be misinformed or generally counterproductive to the cause, but because they are different from their own, assumedly correct, ones.

I’m sure that it’s not as black and white as all that—I’m sure that these women would tell me that I’m not right about that. And maybe I’m not. But the impression that all three of these women make upon me as pertains to their ideas of feminism and womanhood more generally is one of an almost fascist view of what it should mean to be a feminist based entirely upon what they themselves see as the correct mode of life for women and, by extension, feminists. Mama Grizzlies with big families who value fossil fuel burning, monogamy, and guns are Palin’s "feminists.," and anyone who would dare raise a voice against them can't be part of their club. Heterosexual conservative firecrackers who don’t, apparently, need to be very up on their facts or education because of the strength of their personalities seem to be the "feminists" Bachmann is interested in. And Wolf? Well, her crew seems to be comprised of feminists willing to swallow everything she says hook, line, and sinker, up to and including that pornography is bad for all women and all people all the time and that feminism can be legitimately coopted  by anti-Muslim, anti-pornography, anti-abortion (ahem, anti-freedom-of-choice) totalitarians.

These women all seem much more inclined to react to other people’s ideas and actions with violent opposition, thus, as Wolf says, using powerful emotional rhetoric to gain momentum, than to spend time or effort considering their validity and attacking them on solid rational grounds. They say that personal freedom is important to them, that women should be allowed to make the choices they want to make, but seem to find it completely untrue that women might have real and legitimate reasons for making decisions different from their own. Freedom is only freedom if it allows for personal decision-making based on a variety of motivations, personal creeds, and often wildly disparate backgrounds. Yet Bachmann and Palin seem to want everyone to have their freedom to act in a specific set of preapproved ways. And if one steps out of line with these approved modes of behavior, then those with the freedom to do so will rip you down.

This seems to me very reminiscent of Jim Crow laws. Sure, you’re free to be different and that’s fine, but if you step out of line and try to actually use your freedom to act differently… Well, that’s not fine. But that’s not what feminism is about, and I don’t mean to sound like I’m just grabbing it up to hold over my own personal ideals. I hope to wave it around and point out the fact that different ideals about femininity, feminism, and freedom, can be acted out and respected on their own terms without all this finger-pointing and shouting and rallying people to one cause. Feminism is, or at least can be, big enough for us all to hold hands whether we get along or not, and that’s the beauty of the idea. Right? ...right?

Big-Time Announcement About My Big-Time Art Show!

Big  news, my dearies! Remember that post I wrote a while back about porn is and is not art at the same time? Well I wasn’t just examining the nature of art for fun… although really it is a fascinating subject. No, I was brainstorming. For what? Well, folks,yours truly has been asked to curate an art exhibit in TriBeCa, NYC, next March-May… on the subject of “video sex”! Am I the bomb or what, folks? I won’t give away too many deets just yet, as I’ve still to sign the contract and settle on a specific set of ideas, but check out apexart.com for more information on the space, and check out… well the rest of my writing on the internet… for info on me!

Right now my major thoughts are focusing on the difference between how we all perceive our own personal experiences with pornography and how we exhibit our ideas and feelings about those experiences to the rest of the world. To my way of thinking, for many of us on both the consumer side and the production side of video sex, there is a gulf between what we show to the world as our “public face” about porn—we laugh it off, make fun of it, denigrate it, overthink it, pretend we don’t use it, get all vehemently against it, love it too much, modify our bodies or behaviors to fit into what we see in porn, hate porn stars for their bodies… The list of ways in which we behave toward porn in public conversation is almost neverending. But it is not nearly as nuanced or interesting, I think, as the real, unfiltered, unchecked response that we have privately to this material. The interaction that goes on between us and our TVs or computer screens or romance novels or what have you, the stuff we don’t talk about that happens in our hearts and minds when we encounter porn… That’s the good stuff. Not the masturbation—that’s boring. The thoughts and feelings and ways in which we reconcile the ones we don’t like with the ideals we hold. The ways we ignore or fixate on those things we hate and let ourselves be bared completely, physically and emotionally, to what we DO like. And even more interesting than these private thoughts and experiences or the outward displays we show each other is the space between. If we can assume that people’s public faces with regard to filmed sex, whether we take a positive or negative or somewhere-between stance, are held an arm’s length away from the real experiences we have with pornography when we’re alone in our intimate spaces…. Then what happens between point A and point B? How do we get to point B at all?

I want to examine this idea. I want this to become art. I’ll keep you all updated!

Linkyamory: This is Serious

A very worthwhile call for essays over at QLit: Rejecting the Bedroom: Sex and Sexuality as a Site of Queer Resistance and Space. Anyone with a bent toward queer theory should get up in this biz! The question being asked is totally fascinating: how can queer people make the bedroom not the only place in which it is safe to "be" queer? And how can they "queer" the bedroom on their own terms? I can't wait to read the answers people come up with to these questions.

It raises all sorts of questions about how much the sex we have identifies/shapes/distinguishes us and how we make that sex part of ourselves as a meaningful contribution to the lives we want to lead. And it's an important question, particularly right now, as same-sex marriages start up in the wonderfully accepting city of New York. There have been many articles and many photos from this past weekend, when the first same-sex marriages were performed here in the city (on a lottery system to avoid overcrowding, which is kind of funny and kind of annoying all at once), but this photo set by the Washington Post almost made me cry. You'll see why.

This website, however, DID make me cry. The struggle to discover and claim a space in which to be oneself, whether queer or anything else, is one that is so vitally important, and yet in so many places it is forced into a position secondary to the struggle to simply exist. These are the people who get left out of important discussions like the one QLit is opening, not because the issue is unimportant but because the marginalized and forgotten are busy trying to make their very existence a reality, in their own lives and in the minds of others. The struggle for queer recognition and space is the same struggle as the fight for awareness of native people everywhere, but nowhere more so than in this country, where we are so fascinated by the exotic and the "authentic" but forget about the promises we've broken to our own people. Please visit HonorTheTreaties.org and spread the word. Educate others. If you live in America and don't know about the Laramie treaties or the Supreme Court Ruling about the Black Hills or the fact that the war against the Lakota was the only war in which America negotiated for peace by conceding every demand made by the enemy... You SHOULD.

We who espouse the ideology that we can all get along if we are willing to listen to one another must remember that even the voices that are often unheard are the ones we must endeavor most to heed.

Why Anti-Porn Ideology is Totally Wrong-Headed

Sighh....

You know, I've been thinking a lot about this whole Naomi Wolf anti-porn line of reasoning, and though I have many arguments against it on small levels, it suddenly occurred to me yesterday that there's a much bigger and glaringly obvious fault with anti-porn ideology. Especially the "feminist" kind. Namely that its major, though often unstated, goal seems to be to shut down the porn industry for its gross moral indecency, unsafeness,  exploitation of women, and the affects of all the aforementioned degeneracy upon the masses of seemingly hapless consumers who develop addictions and sexual dysfunctions when drowned in smut. But for "feminists" and anyone else who gives a shit about sex workers at all, these perceptions about what comes out of porn valley are not only willfully ignorant of the realities of the porn making process, they are actually the very reasons why it's of the utmost important for outspoken human rights activists to stand up for the porn industry instead of bashing it.

Here's why.

If you think porn should be shut down in southern California and other bastions where it's established itself because it's immoral, indecent, exploitative, unsafe, and dangerous to the general public because of these things, just spend a few seconds thinking about what would happen if the generally well self-policed, self-monitored, self-contained industry that has built itself up around this commodity were to vanish. Before you make a call for the professionally-made porn industry to be outlawed or taken apart at the seams, consider the consequences.

I can't, of course, say that all porn is made ethically or that there aren't companies with big budgets out there doing very unpleasant things that stretch the limits of what can be considered consensual. It's not that I agree with everything that established pornographers do, or that I think their wares always have a positive effect on the people who consume them. Far from it--there are a lot of things I'd like to change about how the "jizz biz" is run in a lot of situations. But the truth of the matter is that nobody cares more about the health of porn performers, the legality of porn operations, the quality of pornographic movies, or the safety of everyone involved... than the porn industry. Certainly not porn critics. Certainly not Cal-OSHA, at least until the AHF began making a huge stink about condom use. Definitely not any level of government. And certainly, not by a long shot, the general public. The porn industry, like every single other legal industry in America, has its flaws. The self-imposed testing system used by the straight industry and the largely condom-mandatory policy used by the gay industry aren't failsafe. And it's not cool to me that they're held so separate in the first place. Not every director and performer is exactly a NICE person. Agents are just as often sleazy and underhanded here as they are anywhere else, often with more dire physical consequences to the well-being of their clients. There are outliers who are really nasty people who really want to see women degraded. It's not all a pretty picture by a long stretch of the imagination.

But even with all these flaws and icky little nuggets of unpleasantness, the porn industry is the most interested body of human beings in the welfare of its own people, the public's perception of itself, and the legality of its product. The porn industry goes to the utmost lengths to prove the age and documented consent of every person it employs. It bends over backwards to make sure every person filmed has recent STI testing because it simply cannot afford, monetarily or public opinion-ly, for there to be epidemics among its ranks. It takes itself very seriously, and it wants nothing more than to please consumers enough that they will spend money in appreciation of its wares. It wants to survive, and it will do what consumers want it to do in order to reach that goal. It will change, morph, stretch, condense, and move itself with a rapidity and liquidity almost unknown in other industries to please its consumers. It has a lot to lose if it goes down, including billions in annual income. It has a vested interest in keeping everything it does above the board, safe, legal, and consensual.

No imagine if some activist group or powerful anti-porn special interest group forced through some sort of legislation (ahem, AHF) that could manage to tear apart this existing structure, either by outlawing the production of pornography in the US or by imposing such rigid constrictions upon it in its southern California nest that the industry fell apart or fled. I mean it, Naomi Wolf, Gail Dines, AHF "activists," soccer moms, Tea Partiers, Michelle Bachmann... all of you. Really, actually, spend a few minutes thinking about what would happen instead of knee-jerk reacting or spewing some dogmatic bullshit. Think.

If the porn industry were taken down, people would NOT STOP MAKING PORN. It is virtually impossible for human beings to stop making porn. People like sexual imagery. We always have. From cave paintings to paleolithic sculptures/totems, to papyrus, to the printing press in its early years, to early photographs, to some of the earliest moving pictures to home video technology to VHS to DVD to HD to 3D to the internet to mobile phones, we have used every major mode of human expression developed during our history to produce versions of pornography. It's in our nature. It's not going to just stop because a few of us think the people running aren't very nice.

Mark my words: if the legal outlet for well-produced, well-paid, safe, consensual sex to be performed and filmed and sold in the United States is torn asunder by activists or conservatives, people will continue to make porn. In their bedrooms, in their basements, in anyplace they can go to bone and film it. With more technology than ever before available at our fingertips to document our sexual adventures, amateur pornography--already a huge presence online--will blossom into a massive underground, largely non-legal, behemoth of a pseudo-industry. But not just the amateur couples at home with a camera on their laptop will be involved--with the existing structure and the big boys out of the way, underground, unsafe, exploitative pornography will flourish. Without a place to call home, pornography making will become a free-for-all. Remember what happened during Prohibition, with the gangs, crime, and violence? Think that. Except with the health and well-beng of thousands of nubile young people at stake in a very real way (as opposed to the limited risk of their becoming involved in the well-monitored, well-taxed, and well-lit existing industry). Think mainstream porn is degrading to women? Well, think what could happen in someone's basement late at night to a drunken teenager when the chances of the video getting millions of hits skyrocket because there's no more professional stuff out there. Feel like porn workers are in danger of contracting STIs and drug addictions in the legal industry? Imagine the likelihood of amateur, underground porn rings requiring test results before filming. Think porn stars are underpaid or overworked in an above-the-board industry? Imagine if filming porn became like bare-knuckle boxing matches or dog fights because it had no place safe to go. And you think agents and directors are sleazy glorified pimps? Imagine if their legal livelihoods were taken away and they became just pimps. Imagine what might happen to the stats on sex trafficking, violent abuse of pornography workers, and underground performers' health and safety.

Chew on that for a few minutes, anti-porn activists, speakers, writers, thinkers, and legislators. Spend just a few seconds realizing the reality: that the world loves pornography and will not stop demanding its production, no matter what you do to the industry that exists to make it. Spend a lot more time, like a few hours, mulling over what would happen if that industry gets wiped out due to your efforts. If you consider yourself any kind of proponent of human rights, especially with regards to sexuality, you should not only support the porn industry in thought but in action. Want things to get better for performers? Fight piracy. Stand up for porn profits. Demand fair compensation for porn performers and autonomy in the porn industry. Be a real activist. Be realistic.

Logical Fallacy #2 (Ok Maybe Not a Fallacy, but Still Bad Writing)

More on Naomi Wolf's ridiculous "Is pornography driving men crazy?" article, which has now been reposted on HuffPo. Thank goodness, the commenters there are taking her to the cleaners for her myopic writing. I'd like to keep taking her there.

Ahem:

"Given the desensitisation effect on most male subjects, researchers found that they quickly required higher levels of stimulation to achieve the same level of arousal. The experts I interviewed at the time were speculating that porn use was desensitising healthy young men to the erotic appeal of their own partners."

Well, again, I'm not a brain scientist. I don't know much about how this all works. But it seems a safe bet (that I've read about, too, but hey look at me I'm not trying to deploy factoids I don't fully understand! Wheee!) that the dopamine hit that men get from jerking off to porn is similar to the one they get from having sex. Orgasm itself releases a flood of chemicals that provide a variety of pleasant effects--dopamine is just one. All of these chemicals are powerful and they work to make us feel happy, slightly sleepy, and emotionally close to the thing or person we've just shared our intimate act with. It applies particularly well if that partner is a human being, and facilitates bonding (evolutionarily, of course, this was meant to help pairs bond in case a child had been produced, so they could both stick around to take care of it).

Many theorists have concluded that perhaps this bond gets shared with porn and develops an even stronger emotional attachment--I'd argue it might make someone bond more with his or her hand. But, hey, what about sex partners? Does this mean that people who have sex with their partners will eventually need more extreme sex to get off?

Well, yeah. I mean that's kind of the whole thing about even the healthiest of sex lives, isn't it? When they start out, most male-sexed people are so excited they have an orgasm in seconds. But after they've done it a bit more often they can go a bit longer, and sometimes after a while they take for-friggin-ever. Right? So does this mean that men who have sexual relationships with other people are going to go around needing to be choked, slapped, and submerged in wax or something every time they get it on, because they've been overexposed to sex?

Well, for some men, yes. But so what? The assumption Ms. Wolf is making is that "extreme" sex acts are always bad. But that's another blog post.

The point HERE is that masturbation and porn are blamed for all sorts of social and sexual evils when both masturbation and porn are simply pieces of the larger sexual puzzle. Yet, when it comes to the things that make these two habits "bad" to commentators and the larger culture, these same things, as applied to other sexual behaviors (like sex with a partner), cease to be as bad. If you need more and more stimulation to get off with your partner, there seems to be little in the way of a stigma attached to it. When things do get out of control, people often divorce or go into counseling for sex addiction, which, incidentally, is just expression the same issues inherent in pornography addiction. It just tends to involve more people in the "addict's" life. I'm not sure where I stand on the idea of sexual addiction in general, and again, I'm not a scientist.

But I'd venture to say that it's not the sex or the porn itself that causes compulsive behavior and addiction that we can write condescending articles about; it's the need for the dopamine. It's the chasing after the rush. It's the inability to put the rush together with a healthy feeling of self-worth, intimacy, or attachment that makes it dangerous, or the ability to find only the rush worth pursuing at the sake of real, meaningful human interaction.

Logical Fallacy #1

Ok, Naomi Wolf. Let's discuss some of this theory you're working with over on Al Jazeera.

One thing at a time. There are so many issues I see in what you wrote about how porn may be "driving men crazy" that I'll take it nice and slow. Ease into it, like a man eases into a hardcore porn habit.

I'm going to just talk about one issue for the moment, and it's succinctly stated in this little paragraph, that's basically restating... ummmm.... your argument:

"As with any addiction, it is very difficult, for neurochemical reasons, for an addict to stop doing things - even very self-destructive things - that enable him to get that next hit of dopamine. Could this be why men who in the past could take time-delayed steps to conduct affairs behind closed doors now can't resist the impulse to send a self-incriminating text message? If so, such men might not be demons or moral ciphers, but rather addicts who are no longer entirely in control of themselves."

Ok, so, you've just spent a few paragraphs building up the idea that porn addiction is the result of a chemical addiction to dopamine that's released when men watch porn, and that technology is making it easier than ever for them to access the porn that they're addicted to. I'm not enough of a scientist (and I'd dare say you probably aren't either) to really extrapolate on whether you're right or wrong about the addiction of pornography (though I'd venture to say that your argument falls short of convincing me because it ONLY talks about porn and not about other modes of sexual release, but we'll save that for another time). But I am definitely enough of a thinking human being to see that what you've built up as the basis for your argument (the effects of jerking off while watching porn) is not the same thing you're trying to make a point about (sending dirty pictures of yourself via text). Not the same thing, like, at ALL.


Again, I'm no neuroscientist. There may, for many people with exhibitionist leanings, be a similar release of dopamine in the brain when revealing pictures are taken and sent to other people, but you haven't really bothered to find out, have you? You've basically set up an argument based on one sexual behavior you consider deviant and then tried to use that argument, with no brandishing of studies or science or even logical extension, to condemn another. But, Ms. Wolf, jerking off to a porno video is not the same thing as pulling down one's pants, snapping a photo, and sending it to someone. They are just not at all the same thing. One is voyeuristic, one is exhibitionist. One is an act of consumption, the other is an act of production. One comes into one's technological device to be used, the other is recorded upon it and then sent out. The first is made, most often, by professionals in a well-lit environment with lots of paperwork having been signed about age and consent--the other is a spur-of-the-moment cock picture. They're just... They're not the same.

I can understand using current news items (or in your case, slightly over-with-already news items) to back up a point you want to make. As a fellow writer, I understand that pitching articles can be a circus trick of delicate timing and balance, and when something really mainstream pops up that even marginally goes along with what you have to say, you have to pounce on it. There's not always time for thorough research or interviews. But, Ms. Wolf, you should try to make sure the point you want to make at least matches the evidence you're amassing. Just because someone really likes drinking wine, that does not make him a vintner. Nor does sending naughty texts of oneself make one a porn addict. This isn't quite apples to oranges, it's more... oranges to, like, planting an orchard or something. Vaguely related in that both tend to involve penis pictures (or oranges). But if you want to blame "extreme porn" for the behavior of certain male politicians, try at least equating them using some data or at the very least a logical argument. Otherwise... well... You get blog posts like this happening.

The Woman's POV Part IV

I'm proud (kind of) to present my last in a four-part series on Madison Young's TheWomansPOV.com about searching for the woman's POV in porn. I wrote the series over the course of a few months, and as so often happens when writing about difficult theoretical and sexual terrain, my thinking on the subject changed massively over the time I was allotted. And it's changed again in the time between when I submitted the piece and now. Looking at an essay written even a few weeks in the past is always agonizing for me--I think, "Why didn't I fix that sentence? Why wasn't I more specific? I repeated that word too many times," and so on anytime I read anything I've published. But particularly in these pieces where I realize I was using the terms "female" and "woman" almost interchangeably, loading them both up with assumptions and values I didn't even think about at the time. At the time I was too busy trying to figure out how to say everything I wanted to say about the importance of giving the usually-objectified person the camera in porn and elsewhere. Allowing them access to the ownership of the creative output is massively important, and finding or cultivating viewers who are willing to take the time to perceive the differences is just as important. I needed to say this, using interview material and photos and my own experience, in not too many words and in a way that would sum up the last three articles, all of which were now in that past-tense, difficult-to-confront place in my mind.
It's all tough. But this is important stuff and I believe very strongly that the people I mention: Richard behind the IShotMyself project, Jennifer Lyon Bell, and Kimberly Kane, are massively impressive for the work they're doing. I just wasn't oh so good at articulating it as well as I wanted to, which is more or less the struggle of the writer. And sometimes we just kind of fall short of our expectations for ourselves. But, hey, I still want people to think about this stuff, so, yeah, rock on, and read on...

Filament and Thigh Strength

First things first: Filament magazine is having an open erotic fiction contest! Filament magazine is THE BOMB--they're a British "lady mag" that focuses on the female gaze in eroticizing and sexualizing the male form, with beautiful art and photography layered with intelligent and interesting articles. It's magical, and now they're offering all their readers a chance to participate! Huzzah!
Personally, I'd love to submit something, but despite my love of writing about all things sexy, I've found that I'm absolutely hopeless at writing erotica. I focus too much on thinky stuff, the background, the setup, and not nearly enough on the hot details. I still harbor dreams of someday being a contributing writer for "the thinking woman's crumpet," but haven't found the right angle yet, and erotic fiction certainly ain't it. So, readers, HAVE AT! Enjoy! And thanks to Violet Blue, the judge and one of my favorite ladies, for pointing this out to me on my blog roll before I got around to Filament's website.

Second, I just learned how to do reverse cowgirl! I've never successfully accomplished this before, so I'm very proud. It's not exactly easy, but it's not as difficult as I thought it would be, either. I do, however, need to work on my thighs if I want to be able to keep it up for more than a few minutes at a time. New Years Resolution #4. It's interesting, because I've never been much of a fan of reverse cowgirl, at least as far as watching porn goes. It's an awkward position to get into, for one thing, and there's always some fumbling that's not so sexy to watch. But more than that, although I know it's used to showcase the woman's body while hiding the man's (and that in itself annoys me: show me some man-mean!), I think it makes the woman look a little stretched out and angular. With all her limbs splayed and her stomach thrust out, she looks more like a stick bug than a sensual, curvy lady. But despite my reservations, it feels pretty damn good. I will be trying it again.

Thirdly, in another first-ever accomplishment, today I sent in my second of four articles on the female POV in pornography to Madison Young's TheWomansPOV.com, along with a photo that I took OF MY OWN POV! (No, that's not it above: I'm WAY pastier than that, and I don't live somewhere that promotes beach-going in January.) I don't know if they'll run it or not, but I felt extremely awesome about pointing a camera down at my own body and clicking the button. For all I've written over the years about how making sexy images isn't shameful or wrong, and how it's actually empowering and important, this is the first time I've taken my own advice and done the deed. I hope it makes the website! I'll keep y'all posted.

I'm Officially COOL

Whoooo! I am awesome! Seriously, this time I am not tooting my own horn (still at the parents, where that's not allowed). I am officially a published writer on a website by Madison Young, the queen of sex-positive porn, the empress of awesome, the coolest of queer-friendly, the most amazing woman pretty much ever. Read my review of "The Crash Pad Series, Episode 76" on TheWomansPOV, and worship my kicking of ass. This is the best late Christmas present EVAR!
Also, read it to hear about the beautiful banging and bodacious bodies that Dylan Ryder and Dia Zerva serve up in the scene, then go watch it once your minds and muffs have both been moistened... Lovely, lovely boobies...