Image by Matthew Williams Design.
This week’s Sf Chronicle column Manufacturing Outrage – Violet Blue: Why the SF Weekly should be ‘whipped and gagged’ brings together years of a local weekly paper insulting and deriding all of the the non-mainstream sexual communities that exist within San Francisco, brought to a head by the recent piece by SF Weekly’s Matt Smith. It’s out of control, and yes, I’m being publicly personally attacked (again ***yawn***) by the Weakly’s Ben Wachs (remember him?). Please read the column; I tied in the shockingly lengthy arrest record of the anti-porn pundit whose repeatedly cited in anti-Kink media, did a big update on the state of things, and got some really quite serious commentary from Acting Director, UC Berkeley’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic Jason Schultz. Many are calling for a boycott of the Weekly (including a few LGBT community biggies) and people are making anti-Weekly shirts. Although a negative situation, I think the reaction of people by and large is a positive sign of the times in terms of acceptance, tolerance and embracing diverse sexual cultures as part of the fabric that makes us who we all are as San Franciscans, Americans and citizens of the world. And fuck those dudes for making fun of me for being depressed on my own blog on the past few months. How low. Here’s a snip, click through for all links:
We do enjoy getting worked into a lather about a lot of things here in San Francisco. As long as you keep the whipped cream and licorice whips on tap, it’s all good — until someone forgets the safeword and things go too far. And with the nonconsensual, unsafe, and ridiculous actions of Matt Smith and the SF Weekly toward Kink.com‘s employees last week, things went way, way too far.
We live in a lot of microcultures here in our Baghdad by the Bay. It’s been like this since we became the Barbary Coast, and it’s been both selling point and big red target ever since. So while we excel at tech and media microculture and we have the brightest, most forward-thinking minds in human sexuality populating everywhere from our coffee shops to our universities, it’s amazing that one of our local weekly papers still thinks that another round of “this week in porn hysteria” is going to make anyone even remotely media-, tech-, or sex-savvy do anything but laugh. Or cry, as in the case of Matt Smith’s clueless and malicious “Whipped and Gagged” piece.
It’s just sad when “alternative” papers can’t be more trustworthy or accurate as the New York Times when it comes to the one thing they’re supposed to excel at: accurately representing local culture. And having a clue about San Francisco values.
Let’s do some “greatest hits” with what’s supposed to be a reputable local media outlet and go-to resource for the communities the Weekly serves:
Back in 2006, the SF Weekly ran a piece that was riddled with factual errors; writer “Harmon Leon ” claimed to attend the AVN porn awards but in his “reporting” got everything wrong from location to award winners. It was also patronizing and offensive. A week later, the online version of the story was quietly changed and the writer was quietly “let go.”
Then in May 2008, our very own Bill O’Reilly also known as Benjamin Wachs (but mostly known as a right-leaning, fallacious, failed screenwriter) did his usual bang-up job of clumsily constructing a column out of sex-hating Tourette’s Syndrome sentences-cum-bullet-points, based on the Chronicle column I wrote interviewing local sex workers about what a typical San Francisco client is like. He used the Weekly’s platform and voice — of San Francisco, natch — to compare sex work to IV drug use, the smell of piss, gang violence, failing businesses, our expensive local economy, disappointed tourists, and of course “our incompetent politicians.” (Like, the ones that have been working diligently and at great cost for the past several years to legalize gay marriage?) (…read more, sfgate.com)
Incredible image by Gary Breckheimer Photography.
