- Big Think blogger Marina Adshade asks, “Would you confess to visiting a sex worker?” and responds to her partner’s “confession” by saying, “If we ever break up, never, ever, give this information to a future girlfriend. I said ‘if’ because it took me a while longer to realize that this was part of his history that I just couldn’t live with.”
- An article about a new queer wave called ”Dawn of a New Gay” that ran in The Grid has taken considerable heat. The backlash has been immense: the Toronto queer community has been writing responses and comments left and right, one of the subjects denounced the article, the Torontoist did some finger shaking at the privilege of the “post-mo”, and The Grid has run another article defending themselves and their writer. Identity politics are a hot button issue and the biggest accusation against individuals who do not want to solely identify as gay men has been apathy.
It’s fascinating to see these issues. As a 26 year old queer who doesn’t exactly get along well with the mainstream LGBT movement I looked at the controversy with interest especially as the pride flags go up on Market Street in San Francisco heralding the 2011 pride parade and celebration also known as Christmas in the Bay Area. One of the subjects stated, “We hated Toronto Pride for its negative stereotypes and its promotion of marginalization and hyper-sexed fools on floats.” Are the post-mos politically apathetic? Hardly. We’re a generation that has grown up with a radically different way of networking and a different context for intersectional issues. One of the subjects referenced the feminist movement and the growing number of dissidents who refuse to accept the party agenda. The only thing consistent about the generation gap is that there is one. Every generation comes into adulthood with a new context. One of the things I hear echoed among the so-called apathetic post-mos is a broader idea of progressivism and identity politics and fingers pointed at mainstream movement leaders for selling out to major corporate interests. The revolution will not be logo-ized.
- In other news, some researchers believe that humans argue to win and rationality may have been developed for the feelings of triumph it can produce. This article from the New York Times was filed under the “arts” section so do take it with a grain of salt.
- North Carolina is considering formal compensation for the victims of forced sterilization by the eugenics movement. The eugenics movement in the US was horrific and victims included rape victims, criminals, juvenile delinquents, people of color, gender variant people, suspected homosexuals, impoverished and working class individuals, people with mental illness or conditions like epilepsy, and just about anyone that the state didn’t like. The last eugenics program in the United States closed in 1979. Do the right thing, North Carolina. To the other 31 states involved in this horrific bullshit, it is time to step up and acknowledge the horrors you have wrought upon your people.
- Yoga afficinado is very concerned that Choudhury Bikram’s brand of yoga is too sexy and not in keeping with Hindu spirituality or traditional yogic practices. I found this article deeply endearing. I agree with the points of the article but not the tone. Bikram himself is a very charismatic, eccentric, histrionic, hilarious, and narcissistic entertainer and athletic instructor. Yes, the notion that it is an especially good “sex moves” workout does prevail but that’s because it is a pretty damn good workout for the making of love. Bikram Yoga is more or less BDSM but with a different aesthetic and if you do it a lot, you’re going to develop some muscle tone, extend your flexibility, and sharpen your skills of breathing through physical pain and stress and getting over to the fuzzy rush where your brain starts producing pleasure hormones. The article makes a major error in its assumption that something erotic cannot be spiritual and that paying for a spiritual experience somehow cheapens or diminishes the core “spiritualness” of it. Bikram himself is an honorary dominatrix in my book for his ability to commercially cultivate intense erotic physical experiences.
Maybe it was the naivete of this article that I loved the most. Bikram conferences hosted in hotels might be full of libidinal energy but so was the international conference on microbiology I once attended. It’s all about propinquity; we tend to be attracted to the people around us and if you isolate a group of adults in a hotel where they form a temporary micro-culture with people they might never see again, fucking will occur. We’ll just call it the Mayhem Principle of Inevitable Hookups. Whether you’ve converged with other adults to wear tiny clothes and get sweaty for hours in brutal physical poses or coming together to stare at slides of bacteria or viruses, people will go upstairs to their hotel rooms and bang.
Here’s what I got out of this article and it comes in the form of million dollar advice all for free: if you possess a strong background and training in yoga and you also possess a strong background and training in Shibari start hosting suspension bondage yoga classes now.
- Estranged Sex is a series of sexual photos that ask questions about sexual intimacy. There is a good chance that some of these photos could be triggering or uncomfortable to look at for some folks.
Condom flash mob
Regarding the ‘Big Think’ article about confessing to visiting sex workers. Is it wrong of me to think that someone with the attitude that Ms. Adshade displays betrays a bias potentially disqualifying her from objective analysis of the economics of sex work?
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