Ottawa librarian defends the purchase and public display of sex guides

A particularly great article about a particularly great librarian implementing a particularly great policy in Ottawa libraries...

Ottawa library defends addition of racy guides

By Patrick Dare, Ottawa Citizen, July 29, 2009

Photograph of Ottawa Public Library head librarian Barbara Clubb by Bruno Schlumberger

OTTAWA — Ottawa is buying explicit sex-instruction books for its public library because the books have good information written by respected authors and some people want to read them, Ottawa's chief librarian said Wednesday.

Barbara Clubb was responding to a complaint about three new books on order at the Ottawa Public Library.

"We have a very broad collection," said Clubb, noting that generating controversy is "part of operating a public library and has been for centuries."

The three books generating the complaint are all published this year: The Anal Sex Position Guide, which features a picture of a couple apparently in the act on the cover; The Going Down Guide; and The Sex Instruction Manual.

Clubb noted that books on sex are "very popular" with borrowers in Ottawa.

Clubb said authors of the three books are authorities in sexuality who have won awards for their work. The books will be placed in the non-fiction human health section, which already includes such titles as The Joy of Sex.

One couple who were perusing the library's books on the order list expressed shock.

"This is pornography, pure and simple, veiled as 'instruction'," they wrote in an e-mail. The couple said the material would be harmful to children and a poor use of taxpayers' funds.

But Diana Pepall, manager of collection development services at the library, said the books are being acquired to build the library's health section.

"They fit right into our mandate to provide information," said Pepall. "We want to cover all aspects of health issues in the collection."

Pepall said that the library would decline to purchase books that contain purely gratuitous or exploitative sexual material.

A summary of the Anal Sex Position Guide, by Tristan Taormino, says it covers anatomy, hygiene, lubrication, sex toys, communication and "beginner and basic positions." There were six requests for the book already in the queue Wednesday.

The Going Down Guide, by Emily Dubberley and Al Needham, is a book about oral sex that includes colour photos, illustrations and diagrams. A summary says it suggests "fun, inventive ways of introducing excitement and intimacy into any relationship." The summary describes the volume as "witty, racy and frank."

By Wednesday, there were 14 requests for the book.

The Sex Instruction Manual, by Felicia Zopol, is described as "a humorous and informative guide to the mechanics of sexual intercourse," including material on aphrodisiacs, foreplay, sex toys and Kama Sutra positions. Eleven readers had requested by that book by Wednesday.

Clubb and Pepall said they don't get a lot of complaints about sexual books at the library but that readers do complain quite often about books that they consider racist or books that contain inaccurate information.

Clubb noted that debates over sexually explicit books and their presence at libraries have been going on for centuries and form part of the ongoing debate about free intellectual expression. For instance, for some years the sexually explicit Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, was kept under the counter at some libraries.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Anal 101

All true, though with a fluid-bonded partner, anal sex without lube can sometimes be fun too. It's a different sensation. She's totally right that it's rougher and has a greater potential for damage inside, but I'm just saying: I don't agree with this sex educator line that "anal sex without lube is nothing but painful". And my boyfriend doesn't agree with it either...

Other thoughts?

Venus Envy runs anal play workshops similar to the one Tristan's talking about in this video. Check their workshop calendar for the next date or call them at (613) 789-4646 and ask.

[via Lifelube]

Sonia Sotomayor & the art of population control

Last week, conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan appeared as a guest on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show to discuss Sonia Sotomayor's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Buchanan opposes Sotomayor's nomination, claiming it is "an affirmative action appointment by the President of the United States". If confirmed, Sotomayor will be the Supreme Court's 111th justice, yet only the third female justice and the first of Hispanic background.

When Maddow asks Buchanan why 108 of the 110 Supreme Court Justices have been white if white privilege isn't at play, Buchanan replies:

White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against. That's why.

Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post sarcastically responds to Buchanan's argument by imploring all Americans to remember that white people not only built this city -- THEY BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL! (Though they stole that from black people too...)

But the part of this inane, unproductively-polarizing Maddow-Buchanan spar that actually interests me is the way in which Buchanan maneuvers for viewers' sympathy by sentimentally invoking the names of individual white, working-class Americans whose dreams, he claims, were cruelly thwarted by affirmative action policies that privilege unnamed yet uniformly unqualified people of colour:

Affirmative action is to increase diversity by discriminating against white males. As Allan Bakke was discriminated at the University of California Davis, as Brian Weber - that worker in Louisiana - was discriminated against, as Frank Ricci and those firefighters were discriminated against, as Jennifer Gratz was discriminated against and kept out of the University of Michigan - which she set her heart on - even though her grades were far higher than people who were allowed in there.

...They are victims of this evil affirmative action policy, which says in effect that everybody's covered by the 14th amendment in the civil rights laws unless you're a white male and your parents and ancestors came from Europe -- then we can discriminate against you. That's what I am against.

Buchanan argues we should correct this injustice and protect individual victims of affirmative action:

They ought to defend the legitimate rights of white, working-class folks who are the victims of discrimination because that's the right thing to do and because it's the politically right thing to do. ...Standing up for Frank Ricci -- we saw the face of a victim of these policies. ...Rachel, you never look at these guys who are working-class guys with their own dreams. Do you think Frank Ricci and those guys were treated justly when they were denied that promotion because they were white?

Frank Ricci. Allan Bakke. Brian Weber. Jennifer Gratz.

Individuals with their own names and particular dreams. Faces that Buchanan urges us to look at, presumably so that we might see their humanity and feel compelled to respond compassionately.

* * * * * * * * *

This week the Globe & Mail reported that better HIV treatments or a possible vaccine may one day be developed by exploring a curious phenomenon occurring among chimps, monkeys and apes. The story itself isn't my focus here so I'll review the details quickly:

• HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) has a parallel in the primate world: SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus).
• SIV is causing deaths among wild chimps, yet most monkeys and apes that have it show no symptoms or illness.
• Chimps are man's closest relative among primates.
• “If we could figure out why the monkeys don't get sick, perhaps we could apply that to people,” says Beatrice Hahn, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

My interest in the story lies in people's response to it. Admittedly, online reader comments are about as measured and profound as letters to the editor in the National Enquirer, but what they lack in substance and diplomacy, they make up for in uncensored insight about what everyday people truly believe. Below are some of the reader comments to the Globe & Mail story about HIV and SIV:

"...mother nature seems to have a way to create dead ends and regulate over population..."

"Why do the unfortunates deserve to be fortunate?"

"I for one care more about a potentially extinct highly evolved other species than a few million more humans of which we have billions extra on this planet and of which saving their lives will forestall producing a few billion extra to suffer and die next decade rather than this."

"i feel bad for the people who suffer everyday with hiv/aids, but if we found a cure, wouldn't their [sic] be a problem with the population?"

South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys said: "In the old South Africa we killed people. Now we're just letting them die." In 2007, an estimated 14,561 Americans died of AIDS, while the total number of AIDS-related deaths in all of Africa was 1,500,000. That's a ratio of about 1:100. The total estimated population of the African continent is only about 3 times that of the total estimated American population.

Those numbers, however, can lead to an erroneous vision of what it is to live with HIV and die of AIDS. Raymond A. Smith writes for The Body:

Throughout the epidemic, views of AIDS have often taken two diametrically opposite perspectives -- the highly personalized form of individual stories and memoirs and works of art versus the highly impersonal form of charts and graphs and statistical tables.

Clearly, the Globe & Mail reader comments are evidence of the "highly impersonal" latter. Imagine a candle light vigil for loved ones lost to AIDS that includes the stirring benediction, "...and may we all leave this place knowing that these 1,500,000 epi-stats have not sacrificed themselves solely for the sake of this gorgeous pie chart in the PowerPoint slide to my left, but also for the glorious goal of population control. May they rest in peace in the UNAIDS archives forever. Amen."

Those reader comments - tacky, heartless, stingy, offensive - should not be dismissed as merely the oddball ramblings of anti-social loners everywhere. They demonstrate a view that is widley-held but only sometimes articulated, wherein vague understandings of natural selection are mutated for political purposes. Ironically, this view is most often espoused by folks like Pat Buchanan and his religious, conservative supporters, despite that they deride Darwinian theories in all other contexts. The view goes something like this:

It's a crying shame if AIDS kills people off by the millions but at the same time, this is how nature controls over-population within all species, right? No one likes to admit it but we all know healthy evolution demands the survival of the fittest. And who says the unfortunates deserve to be fortunate anyway - what's the basis for this bleeding heart belief that interferes with nature?

In 1983, when the AIDS epidemic first broke onto the national scene (though still four years before the U.S. President would utter the word "AIDS"), Pat Buchanan wrote:

The poor homosexuals. They have declared war against nature, and nature is exacting an awful retribution.

There is nothing scientific about this claim; it is all politics and religious dogma. According to this view, nature smites down one American with AIDS for every 100 Africans with AIDS. The obvious question for both religious conservatives like Buchanan and secular conservatives like many Globe & Mail readers is:

If AIDS is nature's awful retribution for those who commit crimes against it, what is it that Africans have done to merit a punishment 100 times more harsh than Americans? And if AIDS is nature's means of population control, why do African populations need to be controlled 100 times more than the American population? Are you truly suggesting that Americans are naturally 100 times more fit for survival?

This is also the core of Rachel Maddow's question about why 108 of the 110 Supreme Court justices have been white. Are white people truly more fit for the job 98% of the time? And if not, why do we resist naming the dynamic at play here?

The conservative critique of affirmative action asks us to look deep into the faces of Frank Ricci and other white men like him. It asks us to name them, to fight so that their dreams may be realized. Simultaneously it dismisses the deaths of "a few million more humans of which we have billions extra on this planet". We affirm the innate and inalienable humanity of white men so that we might feel compelled to respond to their needs compassionately; while purposely undermining the humanity of others by representing them as morbidity statistics, unfortunate casualties of nature's progress. In asking us to actively affirm the humanity of Frank Ricci, Buchanan is calling for the very measure he allegedly opposes: affirmative action.

But this isn't the first time. Despite his claims that affirmative action is "evil", Buchanan has argued in favour of it in the past. In 1971, he urged President Nixon not to abolish affirmative action, but rather to use it to appoint Supreme Court justices from particular religions:

Instead of sending out the orders to all our agencies -- hire blacks and women -- the order should go out -- hire ethnic Catholics, preferable [sic] women for visible posts. One example: Italian Americans, unlike blacks, have never had a Supreme Court member... Give those fellows the 'Jewish seat' or 'black seat' on the Court when it becomes available.

* * * * * * * * *

Faces, names and dreams.

Charts, graphs and tables.

The Constitution. The Declaration of Independence. The U.S. Supreme Court.

Sonya Sotomayor and Rachel Maddow.

Pat Buchanan and Charles Darwin.

Frank Ricci. Henry Louis Gates.

Gettysburg. Normandy.

Monkeys, apes and chimps.

Straight people writing off blatant homophobia as simply a misunderstanding or an isolated incident or the work of a few bad apples.

White people refusing to acknowledge that something -- even if we have yet to reach consensus about what it is -- but something is askew when 98% of all Supreme Court justices have been white in a land that has only been predominantly white for a few hundred of its thousands-of-years history.

The deaths of millions of poor folks, trans folks, people of colour -- whole communities even -- written off as a lamentable but indirectly fortuitous solution to over-population.

Public professions of belief in a pyramid hierarchy wherein the names, faces and dreams of the privileged are valued more than "highly evolved primates", who in turn are valued more than the masses of epidemiological statistics who would have stolen our jobs anyway had they lived long enough to reap the rewards of evil affirmative action.

* * * * * * * * *

I know, I know, it's a bit of a stretch. Half-baked conclusions drawn by the paranoid mind of someone who's been stewing in their own resentments for far too long and begins to imagine the whole world is out to get them. Essentially no different than Pat Buchanan, just on the other end of the spectrum.

I'm not drawing a conclusion here, however; I'm trying to work out a hole in my heart. I'm not imploring you to do something or to think something; I'm seeking a new way to see the world myself.

On a good day, I can rationalize that I have different rights and freedoms than others around me by depersonalizing my experience and trying to see myself not as an individual, rooted here in the present; but as simply one among billions in the long continuum of time over which things are supposed to improve.

On a bad day, the desire for my own face, my own name, my own dreams to be recognized - and those, too, of my community - squelches my optimism and births rage and repugnant martyr fantasies of self-sabotage.

I'm seeking fewer position statements from myself and more incantations. Conjurations for more magic, which, as I see it, is the best we have to hold on to, much of the time. The only alchemic elixir that can sustain the dreams of the unnamed: hope.

Ickaprixtape #1

Ickaprick & Ironpussy got together to make a short mixtape and they asked me to share it with you all!

Click here to see all the Ickaprixtapes.

Dave Pineau, the comeback kid

As I begin my last couple of months as an outreach worker at the AIDS Committee of Ottawa before returning to school this fall, I am realizing how many amazing people this job has brought into my life.

Most of these people whom I have grown to love remain unknown to my other friends. For reasons of confidentiality and respect, the amazing stories they share with me remain their own to tell or not tell when they choose. On a couple of occasions I have been able to share small moments from my life at the drop-in on the 7th floor, like radiant Ni and his admiration for Madonna's giant dick, but mostly it's a private world I enter when I take the elevator up and relinquish when I descend at the end of the day.

That's why I was excited to see a profile of Dave Pineau in a recent edition of The Positive Side magazine. Entitled The Comeback Kid, the article recounts the successes and setbacks in the life of one local man admired by many others. I first got to know Dave as the co-editor of the Choices and Voices of Ottawa newsletter, a local publication primarily written by-and-for drug users on how to use harm reduction strategies to stay well. More recently, I've got to know him better by eaves-dropping as he coaches a new outreach worker friend who shares my office. We're learning from the best and it seems odd that I'm leaving people this real to go study in a place far less rooted in reality...

Sometimes, upon hearing stories of people like Dave, I wonder if others think I'm just a social work wonk, seeing survivors everywhere while others simply see the dude who panhandles on that same corner in front of the Tim Horton's or the lady with the zoned out eyes always pacing somewhere in the Market or the teen guy with the weird scabs on his hands. The experiences I've had in this job and similar jobs before this one roll around inside my head and heart and, for a guy who writes a lot and often, they can render me pretty inarticulate for the sheer depth of their impact.

Here's Dave's story. I hope people get a sense of the real guy beyond just the facts of his life.

Don't be mad because I'm rad!!

And --- of course --- Gonna Do a Dyke Tonight, a tonetta777 CLASSIC:

[via CTRL+W33D]

A global portrait of gay guys and HIV

In a report prepared for the 2008 International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, amfAR (an AIDS research foundation) stated:

In far too many countries today, MSM [men who have sex with men] continue to have little or no access to HIV services of any kind and as a result are plagued by high rates of infection. In an unfolding tragedy of epic proportions, the numbers tell the story. HIV prevalence among MSM in Mexico is 26%. In Thailand, it is 25%. In Bolivia, 22%. Globally, MSM are 19 times more likely to be infected with HIV than the general population.

This is all true, though it can be too easy to assume the developing world somehow provides inferior access to services than does a country like Canada, for example. Consider, then, that HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men in Toronto is 24.5%, whereas HIV prevalence among the general Canadian population is about 0.1%. That means that Toronto MSM are 245 times more likely to be infected with HIV than the general Canadian population. 245!

The amfAR report goes on to say:

In spite of the evidence that the HIV epidemic continues to grow among MSM populations, few countries have taken proactive steps to reverse this crisis. MSM-targeted HIV programs comprise less than 1% of total HIV spending in Latin America, despite the reality that a quarter of the people in Latin America living with HIV are MSM and sex between men is the most prominent mode of HIV transmission.

To help us get a sense of global progress on HIV/AIDS among men who have sex with men, the Peripheries blog posted images from the end of the amfAR report. (Click on the image to get a larger view)

This map shows which countries include information on men who have sex with men in their progress reports to UNGASS (the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS). 44% of countries do not. Obviously, a country would need to monitor the progress of HIV among men who have sex with men in order to prevent further infection within that group.

Ottawa as a city would be that middle yellow colour. The MSM HIV prevalence here is 11%. Ontario as a province would be that light orange colour. Ontario MSM HIV prevalence is 17%. Toronto would be the dark orange colour, the highest prevalence category.

I don't know what percentage of Ottawa gay guys took an HIV test within the last 12 months but I'd be real curious to find out. Check out how many countries aren't reporting this data. There's a whole lot we don't know.

In theory this map shows what % of MSM know how to prevent HIV. In reality it shows what % of countries don't know how to prevent HIV among men who have sex with men...

[via ILGA via the consistently great Peripheries]

Pet Shop Bears

Pet Shop Bears

For a recent interview with the men behind PSB, click here.

A guest post by a local Ottawa escort

A little less than a month ago, POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate & Resist) organized Whores Hustle, Ottawa's first sex worker pride party. While there were definitely some bumps along the way and some backlash from folks who get upset when sex workers try to speak for themselves, there was also a lot of feedback from local workers that the event had a positive impact on how they view themselves, their work, and others' responses to it.

One local worker emailed me afterward to say, "I have an afterglow today about the evening and have never felt more proud in my own skin about anything. Thank you for making last night happen." That's some real encouragement to keep moving forward with POWER and demanding more safe space for sex workers in the city.

That same worker posted a review of the Whores Hustle party on a local website where clients and workers chat together about the industry and the relationships they share. She gave me permission to re-post her review below, which she titled, "Ottawa: an upwards battle (bit of a rant but more of a THANK YOU to POWER)":

I took today off to go to dinner and then to a sex-workers' pride event at a local club thrown by the group POWER that I'm a member of. The event was a huge success and we generated a lot of support, I was beaming with pride at the cheers generated by the hosts to the plight of realizing what it means to have safety and independence and honour brought to our profession.....and that it should be deemed as such: a noble profession. Supporters were cheered on too....everyone was appreciated.

However the night was not without its batch of naysayers and judgmental ignorants at the end of the evening....i actually lost some "friends" tonight (notice I use the term "friends" loosely) getting caught in debate as to what our world really was about and truly deserved. It leaves me a bit saddened...actually VERY heavy hearted.. but gives me hope in that this was a huge step for Ottawa. A difficult upwards battle is definitely in our future though.

I was basically outed to everyone that I happened to know outside of work tonight who happened to be there (perhaps the shirt that said "I LOVE my job" played a part in this, lol)...but I don't care anymore. This is my life, I've chosen it and those who don't care to see past their own stereotypes yet still attend a night like POWER threw tonight wishing to scoff and cast stones....well I wonder why they showed up in the first place. (??) I for one know a few blokes who showed up seeing if they could meet some "hookers" and "peelers" first hand and were surprised and turned off that there was a homosexual market in Ottawa and were disgusted that "queers" were even mentioned tonight. One (no longer) "friend" came up to me at one point and asked me to point out all the "hot whores" that were present. I said (in less polite words) that I regretted ever handing him a flyer.

Many people worked long and hard and planned this event thoroughly and delivered an amazing show...full of shout-outs and respectful cheers and amazing music and live performances.

I personally would like to applaud POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate & Resist) for bringing the community together tonight. I for one am not going to let tonight's naysayers affect my pride for my work...if anything I feel sorry for some who judge before they even try to understand.

I hope that everyone in support of tonight or in organization of tonight sees the contribution over the judgment and recognizes what a big step they have made for our industry in Ottawa. I for one (no matter what I may have lost tonight...that didn't matter in the first place now that I think of it) have gained more strength from coming to terms with who I am tonight....

....and I have POWER to thank for it.

Divergence Movie Night: Last Call at Maud's

Divergence Movie Night presents...
"Last Call at Maud's" (77 minutes)
Tuesday, July 14
Doors 7pm, movie 7:30pm
Club SAW, 67 Nicholas Street
Free admission, $5 suggested donation




"Last Call at Maud's" chronicles the history of the longest-running lesbian bar in the United States. This venerable San Francisco establishment opened in 1966, when lesbians were still very much in the closet. Maud's flourished throughout the 70s and 80s, enjoying an international reputation as a meeting place for lesbians and their friends, only to be shut down in 1989. Provocative personal stories of coming out in the 50s and 60s, sexual politics and softball are mixed with flashbacks to the Hollywood gay bars of the 40s and the vice raids of the 50s. The vintage photos and personal interviews are an invaluable window into lesbian history.

The massage parlour mistake

At the end of May, Ottawa police arrested two women for running a bawdy house. Bawdy house is basically a fancy word for brothel. Brothel is basically a fancy word for indoor place where adults consent to have sex in exchange for money. The cops put several months' work into the investigation after they found a classified ad in a local newspaper advertising the purported spa. Several months. This is the main reason they don't have the time or resources to either find your stolen bike or take seriously rumours of serial killers targeting women in impoverished Vancouver neighbourhoods.




The "sprothel" was on Parkdale Avenue, in the heart of quickly gentrifying Hintonburg. Hintonburg is also the site of Ottawa police's john letter campaign, in which they target drivers suspected of looking for street hookers by sending a warning letter to the address where the vehicle is registered. I co-wrote an article with Chris Bruckert of the University of Ottawa about all the ways in which the john letter campaign is misguided at best and dangerous for the well-being of both street workers and Hintonburg residents at worst. You can read it here.

But does anyone wonder, "Why Hintonburg? Why Parkdale Ave? Why there now?"

A very similar process of simultaneously targeting street-based workers, indoor work sites like massage parlours as well as the johns that frequent them is currently underway in San Francisco (as well as many other cities). There, too, it is focused on neighbourhoods in which wealthier people are seeking to displace the original occupants of traditionally poor neighbourhoods.

Rachel West, who works with the U.S. PROStitutes Collective has written a great opinion piece about San Francisco's mix of mayors, cops, developers and ho's. It's worth reading for what it can teach us about targeting of the poor and unpopular in our own city.

The massage parlor mistake

Fearing arrest and/or deportation will mean fewer women will report rape or other violence and exploitation when they occur

By Rachel West

Taking advantage of the recent turmoil over the huge city budget cuts, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Carmen Chu, have pushed though malicious legislation imposing criminal charges and restrictions on massage parlors. Many are outraged that this costly legislation was prioritized — we want to know why it was, and how much it will cost to implement. Lawyers are questioning its legality.

Under the guise of concern for women's safety, Chu and Newsom falsely claimed that the law would stop sex trafficking. We've heard these lies before. Politicians who want to increase the criminalization of sex workers confuse prostitution, which is consensual sex for money, with trafficking, which is forced and coerced labor, sexual or otherwise. The reality is that most parlor employees work consensually and often collectively, without force or coercion. In Rhode Island, where indoor prostitution is legal, similar legislative maneuvers are in the works, also using the pretext of trafficking to make criminals of women working indoors.

Chu and Newsom claim they are targeting parlor owners, but by pushing the industry further underground, their legislation makes workers, many of whom are immigrant women, more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. Workers will suffer most from the increased raids, arrests, and criminalization. Fearing arrest and/or deportation will mean fewer women will report rape or other violence and exploitation when they occur.

What is the real political agenda here? Chu and Newsom have said that the proposals "could make it easier to close the 50 or so city-licensed parlors suspected of selling sex." If and where sex is being sold, parlor closures would force women onto the streets — where it is 10 times more dangerous to work. Those who are arrested are likely to end up in prison — to the devastation of their children — or deported. What good reason is there to endanger women's safety and break up families this way, especially during hard economic times?

San Franciscans question why, when most trafficking cases occur in the agricultural, construction, clothing, and domestic industries, anti-trafficking measures target immigrant sex workers working of their own free will. We suspect racist gentrification policies are behind this legislation. Developers will be allowed to seize land in the Tenderloin and downtown areas if massage parlors are forced to close. This deceitful, profiteering law imposes huge fines, criminal charges, and has a punitive clause making the parlors pay for unspecified enforcement charges against them.

Considering that not long ago, police were exposed for taking thousands of dollars from massage parlor workers, involving them in the licensing process creates fertile ground for increased corruption.

What is wrong with selling or buying sex if both parties consent? After all, 42 percent of San Franciscans voted last November for Proposition K, which would have decriminalized sex work, despite a campaign of fear mongering and misinformation by the mayor and district attorney. New Zealand successfully decriminalized prostitution six years ago to "promote occupational health and safety" and "protect from exploitation." There has been no increase in prostitution, pimps, or traffickers, and women are more able to report violence and insist on their rights. It's time for San Francisco to do the right thing and stop criminalizing sex workers.

[via San Francisco Bay Guardian, thanks to Adele for the tip]

How to tell people they sound racist

Is this good advice?

Or you could just do this:

I have the hots for Aziz Ansari something real bad...

[via Ill Doctrine via The New Gay]

Ultimate Sub / Ultimate Dom: Maria Von Trapp & Mary Poppins

Dayna McLeod is this unhinged video and performance artist from Montreal we invited up to Ottawa last year for Get Real Queer, the AIDS Committee of Ottawa / Venus Envy joint Pride party. She completely delivered by coming on stage in this beaver costume where the beaver had a beaver you could reach right inside of. Backstage she had stuffed the beaver's beaver full of prizes we got for her including free egg vibrators supplied by Venus Envy (that was real nice of them). We didn't really know how it would go over in a club full of queer hipsters but it turned out the answer was REAL WELL. Folks seriously lined up and waited ten minutes each just to get a turn humping Dayna the beaver and to reach into Dayna the beaver's beaver to get their prize. At some points Dayna the beaver had three different homos on her fucking her face butt and vag, but when she'd come up for air and we'd ask, "Do you want to shut it down? Have you had enough?" she was a total trooper and went in for more. Anyway, long story short: Dayna McLeod is crazy and awesome.

One of the lots of things Dayna does is head up this project called 52 pick-up, where artists are challenged to get their creativity pumping by creating one video per week for 52 weeks. I haven't had enough time to explore it in depth but one of Dayna's recent videos caught my attention right away...

"Ultimate Sub / Ultimate Dom: Maria Von Trapp & Mary Poppins" is pretty self explanatory. I don't know how to embed the video here on my blog but you can catch it by clicking the photo below and, seriously though, I think you'll be glad that you did.

God hates fags and Michael Jackson

Yesterday morning I got up at 5:20am and did my usual routine: I showered, I put on Old Spice cologne, I followed the cat downstairs and filled his food bowl and gave him an Ocean Explosion cat treat, I had a bowl of Mini Wheats with soy milk, I took it outside to eat in the backyard and watch the sun rise, I made the cat go inside because I am afraid the neighbour is putting out poison to stop the neighbourhood strays from pooing under his porch, I got on my bike and rode to work, I stopped at Tim Horton's to get an everything bagel with cream cheese, I rode the elevator to my office on the 7th floor with gorgeous views of Centretown and, finally, I sat myself down to read the online schedule of Westboro Baptist Church, the group who pickets AIDS and homo funerals with signs that say GOD HATES FAGS.

As many of you may already know - particularly those of you who own either a television or radio, have access to the internet, grocery shop and browse magazine headlines while waiting in line or are sentient beings within listening range of pretty much any other sentient beings engaged in conversation- Michael Jackson is dead. For those of you who weren't yet in the know, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

And if you didn't already know Michael Jackson is dead, that would also mean you are less in the know than good old Fred Phelps and the gaggle of evangelical children who follow him around the U.S. protesting the same-sex-attracted and/or immunity-compromised deceased.

But much more to the point: today Westboro Baptist Church will bring their GOD HATES FAG carnival to the Los Angeles Staples Center so they can -- wait for it -- protest Michael Jackson's funeral. OMG it's too insane. Here's the text from their online schedule:

Michael Wacko Jacko Jackson is in hell! WBC will be there to remind you to stop worshiping the dead. We will be there to tell you to Thank God for the death of this filthy, adulterous, idolatrous, gender-confused, nationality-confused, unthankful brute beast. We will be there to remind you that God Killed Wacko Jacko. There is a God, and a Day of Judgment. For you to wallow and murmur against God for his righteous Judgments is sin and will cause YOU to join Michael in hell. Stop that!

OK. This story has pretty much everything I have ever loved and hated about pop culture and the U.S. and gay identity politics and just everything everything everything. I think it could basically only get better if it somehow involved Pee Wee Herman. But wait, it does get better. The very next day, Phelps and his entourage will haul ass across the country to Gary, Indiana, place of Michael Jackson's birth and admittedly short childhood. (Who covers all their travel costs?? I mean seriously!) They'll set up at Gary's Steel Yard Baseball Stadium where they'll bring a new angle to their God Hates Michael Jackson protest. Check out this message to the residents of Gary:

You killed Michael Jackson! ...Gary, Indiana and the inhabitants are to blame for the death of this freak-show of a man. The Mayor has lied even up to this very day referring to this human, adulterer, filthy beast with a name preserved exclusively for the Lord Jesus Christ (The Prince of Peace), and will be punished by God for these words of blasphemy. You did that. You had a duty to love and help him, and that started when he was a very small lad. Whoever wrote that little television movie "The Jackson Five" knew some things about that family. The father is to blame, of course, but what about all you who knew these things were happening under that roof and kept your mouths shut so you could gossip and mock them, then smile in their faces? How about you teachers, and leaders who knew this little boy and let him wallow in his selfishness and sorrow and not one of you open your mouths and speak right words of truth? How about you Music and Hollywood movers and shakers to took and sucked every bit of life out of the little stupid?! On and on, you consumed this self-absorbed, confused, ignorant little kid! His death and blood is on all of your hands! Now you have the nerve to pretend (as you mock and scoff about him being an acquitted child molester) you loved and adored him. With friends/love like you/yours who needs enemies/hate from you. It is all the same! Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. How simple is that? How wrong are you each one for not doing this duty to Michael Jackson? I will tell you - blood guilty! Ezekiel 33:7 So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. 8 When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 9 Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Finally, be happy Jacko did not live to see the days (shortly coming) when you will all be devoured by Antichrist Obama, he's bringing your trauma, you will be eating your cute chubby little babies because you will have no jobs, no prospects, no hope, no money, no food because of the destruction of this land. AMEN!

I have really nothing more to add to that. I am just going to sit here in silent awe that the same country that produced the singular, twisted passion of Michael Jackson also produced the singular, twisted passion of Fred Phelps - it's awesome. This has truly made my week.

(Though, if I may, I'll simply add that crazy Phelps and his ilk better not, at any point, pull any of these pranks on Dolly Parton - whether she be living or dead. Ever. Seriously. It's not a joke.)




[via Pink News]

PhotoPositive wants to pay you to photograph your life

Click on image for a larger version

Marney McDiarmid emailed me to ask if I could help spread the word about the PhotoPositive project for Toronto gay and bi HIV+ men happening July 20 to August 18.

If you're a poz queer man, the project coordinators will lend you a digital camera and give you basic training in photography techniques. You'll then be asked to take photos that explore your experiences of HIV-related stigma.

At the end of the project, you can decide whether you want to show your photos in a public exhibit or just keep them private. Some of the photos will also be used as the basis for interviews with men who are HIV-.

You have complete control about how you are represented. You can use your own name or remain completely anonymous.

PLUS -- you'll be given $40 for each workshop you attend.

If you're HIV+, identify as a gay or bi man and are available to attend workshops in Toronto, you can sign up by contacting Marney at marneymcdiarmid@gmail.com or (613) 549-6850.

A hopeless cry of infinite darkness

A Hopeless Cry of Infinite Darkness (subtitled: "Sadies lame blog") is written by Sadie Tucker, who describes herself as "a MTF transgender, who's spent more than 2 decades committed to sex and drugs and rock n roll. I'm currently trying to get clean and it sucks. So instead of smoking crack I'm writing crap on the computer."

Sadie's storytelling is un-self-conscious and straight-up and she uses great phrases like "today I got the pissiest news since pissy news was invented". Check out this wicked account of how she first met her lover. Or what it's like to try and fill your day with a whole lot of not buying crack:

Once again a day of wasted time and wasted opportunities. Thematically this is a perfect fit since, barring a couple of rare and isolated times, my life in its entirety has been a shocking and saddening waste.

And so it's on that cheery note that I begin yet another meandering and utterly pointless entry on this the lamest of the lame blog elite.

I've been getting re-acquainted with the internet these past few weeks - in fact since I'm not doing drugs, and need to occupy my time somehow, I've been spending a simply ridiculous amount of time online. Right now I'm trying my hand at being an internet DJ courtesy of a site called blip.fm. I've got - as of this particular juncture - a grand total of 15 listeners. Not the start of a revolution, but it's fun knowing other people are listening.

I've also been obsessed with a social networking site called Facebook and that's been fun. Mainly it's given me a great deal of fun catching up with scads of people I haven't seen for over a decade, and in some cases longer. It's cornball, and a little pointless, but nonetheless it is genuinely fun to connect with so many people I had lost track of while developing my drug addiction.

Another one of these social networks that I've gotten involved with is called Fetlife and it's a similar concept, but is geared towards the kinkster/fetish crowd. All of this is helping to keep me from thinking about smoking crack, which is a good thing. In fact that might be the best thing about it. It's hardly a substitute but I'll take every bit of help I can get. It's Sunday morning as I type this out, and that means that I'm just over 24 hours away from getting my welfare cheque. This will be the first time in about a month that I'll have the money to get some crack if that's what I wanted to do. and it most certainly isn't. I'm grateful though and thank Goddess that my dearest sister will be with me when I cash it. So that means my chances of caving in and buying dope are virtually nil.

Sadie does end up slipping with a bag of coke she finds, but gets things back on track, only to get busted by the Toronto cops for Section 213 of the Canadian Criminal Code - communicating for the purpose of prostitution. She tells a harrowing tale of what it's like to spend a few days at the Don Jail as a trans woman.

But me telling her story on her behalf really kind of sucks. It's her story and she tells it with ample wit and self-determination. You're better off going to her blog and reading her story and cheering for her through the Intertubes yourself.

Ontario judge tells REAL Women to zip it!

A couple weeks ago I wrote about an appeal by REAL Women of Canada, a conservative women's group, and two religious groups - the Catholic Civil Rights League and Christian Legal Fellowship - to be allowed to participate in the Ontario constitutional challenge of the criminal prostitution laws set to begin this fall. The three groups argued that if Canada's prostitution laws are to be decided by the courts, the courts should account for moral as well as legal arguments.

Well, yesterday Mr. Justice Ted Matlow of the Ontario Superior Court made his decision:

• He said that the participation of the three groups could disrupt and prolong the hearing.
• He said they would be liable to turn the trial into a soapbox for spiritual views, which would be out of place in a strictly legal proceeding.
• He said he was reluctant to convey an erroneous impression that the groups have a "special relationship" with the court that permits them to present contentious moral opinions that "would reflect the views of only small segments of Canadian society."
• And he said that the groups struck him as being unaware that the challenge "does not provide a political platform where interested persons are permitted to speak in order to advance their personal views, beliefs, policies and interests at large."

In other words, he said NO. That's pretty much the best decision we could have asked for. A small victory on a long, long road ahead, but a victory nonetheless!


[via The Globe & Mail]

India decriminalizes gay sex

Section 377, the law that criminalized consensual homosexual sex in India and which was a holdover from the British colonial administration, was struck down by the New Delhi High Court on Thursday. It is no longer a crime for anyone over the age of 18 to have consensual gay sex.

Justice S. Muralidhar's judgment states:

This Court believes that Indian Constitution reflects this value deeply ingrained in Indian society. Those perceived by the majority as deviants or ‘different' are not on that score excluded or ostracized. Where society can display inclusiveness and understanding, such persons can be assured of a life of dignity and nondiscrimination.

The Globe & Mail reports that Section 377 was rarely used for prosecutions, but rather was a favourite tool of police to threaten and extort gay men and transgender people in particular.

“The threat of exposure is enough to extort gay men for sex and money in India on a daily basis,” said Leslie Estefeves, a leader with a collective of activists called Voices Against 377, who shed anxious tears before the judge even began to speak.

The case apparently bounced between courts for more than eight years and may still not be over if the government chooses to appeal. Behind the exciting news headline, then, are years and years of exhausting work on the part of Indian activists and gay and trans people throughout the country willing to take a risk to demand equality under the law. It's sad to think of the price people have to pay to win this kind of victory, but I guess that's how our current systems allocate rights: we'll eventually grant you the same entitlements that we currently enjoy because to not do so would invalidate our claims of being a democratic and egalitarian society -- yet we'll do everything we can to make your fight more difficult and when it finally happens, we'll take centre stage to congratulate ourselves on being progressive and tolerant.

I keep thinking of the friend who, on the 40th anniversary of the decriminalization of gay sex in Canada, changed her Facebook status to a message of gratitude to then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau for making it happen. Trudeau didn't grant equal rights to queer Canadians -- queer Canadians won equal rights for themselves!

No More Potlucks: COPY

Montreal-based No More Potlucks has just posted the fourth edition of their online magazine. The theme this time round is COPY:

To copy, as in, the act of copying, duplicating. Copy as the product of copying, the duplication of information or artifact. To copy an original, to multiply, to replicate, reconstruct, (re)represent, to imitate. Copy as simulacra, as copycat, to twin.

Both Ickaprick and Ironpussy have contributed to the COPY edition of NMP. Entitled Sex worker rehabilitated in outdoor cage. Later died alone., their article looks at media portrayals of drug-addicted prostitutes. Oh yeah!





Issue no. 4: copie // copy
...with the following articles:

The Increasingly Unproductive Fake

Alexandra Juhasz

Dump Gay Marriage Now

Yasmin Nair

Getting Messy and Complicated with Dana Inkster

Dayna McLeod

(Colonial) Archives and (Copyright) Law

Jane Anderson

Reproductive Technologies: Flesh, Paint, Text

Laura J. Murray

Sex Worker Rehabilitated in Outdoor Cage.
Later Died Alone.

Nicholas Little

Pierre Dalpé's Duplicitous Heart

NMP

Lesbian Concentrate

Bernie Bankrupt

Butch 47

Elisha Lim