- The next time you’re getting hot and heavy in the back of a cab, you may want to think about the fact that there is a third person involved—the driver entrusted with delivering you safely to your assignation. Cabbie Collects X-Rated Pics Of Passengers Hooking Up (Gothamist)
- A 40-year-old American man living in Scotland said Monday he’s sorry for posing as a Syrian lesbian blogger who offered vivid accounts of life amid revolt and repression in Damascus. And as the deceit unspooled, a second blogger known as Paula Brooks, who posted some of the fraudulent Arraf’s comments on a lesbian news site, LezGetReal.com, admitted to being a man [58-year-old retired U.S. Air Force member named Bill Graber] who had adopted a fake lesbian persona. 2nd lesbian blogger revealed as man (San Jose Mercury News, LezGetReal.com currently offline)
- After harassment, stalking, bullying and worse – beloved sex blogger TBK is back with a smashing relaunch and a great Sex-Positive Community for Women (The Beautiful Kind)
- Some within feminist movement have labelled those of us who do the advocacy in the sex worker rights movement as “privileged” and “happy hookers” who are unable to understand the hardships that sex workers who are not “us” face. Do not assume anything about the sex workers you are meeting at the Scarlet Alliance conference this weekend. Do not assume anything about the sex workers you meet on Facebook, who you see in the media, who you see doing advocacy. Why feminists should listen to sex workers (The Scavenger)
- Today, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, in Los Angeles, released an opinion finding Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional in a bankruptcy filing brought by a same-sex married couple. Bankruptcy Court: DOMA Unconstitutionally Limits Same-Sex Married Couples From Joint Bankruptcy Filing (Poliglot)
- “These findings cast doubt on most current evolutionary theories about female orgasm’s adaptive functions, and on the validity of FOD (“female orgasmic disorder“) as a psychiatric construct.” Female Orgasm Rates are Largely Independent of Other Traits: Implications for “Female Orgasmic Disorder” and Evolutionary Theories of Orgasm. (PubMed)
- Noted hothead actor Russell Crowe came out against circumcision via Twitter on Thursday. It all started, according to the Daily Mail, with a question from a pregnant follower, who asked the actor if he thought she should have her future baby boy circumcised. Russell Crowe Goes On Twitter Rant Against Circumcision (SFist)
- (This is sure to end well.) A new Tennessee law makes it a crime to “transmit or display an image” online that is likely to “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress” to someone who sees it.Tenn. law bans posting images that “cause emotional distress” (Ars Technica)
Image of nude painted San Francisco Map Girl by cpinbk via Flickr’s “share this” function.
My comments on circumcision. It’s a choice. One that should not be mandated for of against. People should make informed decisions. I am slightly biased against due to mine being botched. But that doesn’t mean I want it banned.
According to http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/866242-lesbian-blogger-who-published-fake-lesbian-blogger-was-also-fake-lesbian-blogger , the two fictional lesbians flirted with each other on occasion, each believing that the other really was a woman. I imagine it went a little something like South Park’s Mr. Garrison trying out scissoring.
The ‘why feminists should listen to sex workers’ article was interesting, as was the commentary after. I’ve often thought that there are two forms of sex work: the voluntary adult folk, and the victimized. And we are foolish to ignore either group. I would love to see prostitution taken off of the books as a crime. Turn it into a regular licensed field of practice, like doing manicures, with health inspections and all that.
At the same time, pimping should be prosecuted as a major crime. And the ‘hiring’ of underage sex workers should be also prosecuted as a felony, whether or not the customer claims to know that the sex worker was underage.