Thomas Roche's first novel, The Panama Laugh, is a gonzo military science fiction zombie apocalypse that has been compared to the writings of Jim Thompson and Hunter S. Thompson. He is also a widely published author of sex-positive erotica and the occasional purveyor of horror and crime-noir short stories, and a commentator on sex, crime, culture and politics.
If you lose sleep worrying, as I sometimes do, that Russia’s nascent democracy has been torpedoed by the rising tide of Neoliberal oligarchs and centralized political power within a small ruling elite with total disregard for human rights and egalitarian democracy, let me reassure you that, “Well, maybe they’re not really democratic over there in…
The above Argentinian PSA got me all verklempt. It shows a series of transgender Argentinians talking about how it feels to have the name on one’s ID not match one’s identity. It’s in Spanish, with English subtitles added after-the-fact by Blabbeando (the link comes via Charlie Glickman at Good Vibrations). With its perky, music, straightforward…
A new study from the University of Michigan is sure to get trotted out for years to come as proof that “real men have safe sex.” But to my eyes, what the study actually says is pretty unclear — and, in fact, it may not really say anything. The study was about testosterone levels and…
In case you’re wondering why it’s dangerous to put loaded science in the hands of journalistic toddlers, the article Why Macho Men Are More Likely to Have Safe Sex at The Daily Mail is a perfect example. I know, I know, all my UK friends keep telling me: “Don’t read bloody The Daily Mail.” Sometimes…
An article today on South Africa-based News 24 leads me to a fascinating piece of information I was somehow unaware of. In Europe, there is a profession called “sexual assistant” — and in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany, it’s a fully licensed profession with “proper legal status.” Though I’ve never heard this specific term, a…
In a story headlined Catholic Church Makes A Fortune In The German Porn Business, Worldcrunch condensed and simplified a sensationalistic story from the conservative German newspaper Die Welt that didn’t stop at throwing around accusations not just about porn, but about atheism, magic and Satanism. I’m willing to bet that the only things most porn-savvy…
If you like puppets, googly eyes and trans pride, you’ll squee like I did over the above trailer for the 10th Anniversary San Francisco Transgender Film Festival, which kicks off this coming Thursday with a night of performance by transgender and gender-variant artists, and follows it up with full two nights of short films. As…
As you may know, the Transportation Safety Administration doesn’t have an impeccable record when it comes to sex and sexual assault issues, the simple sanctity of passenger bodies, passenger privacy, et cetera. Sure, sometimes that can be pretty funny — because, hey, what’s not hilarious about being non-consensually groped? Other times it’s just weird. Certain…
As you may know, one of the big questions in the Republican U.S. Presidential primary is just how rabidly anti-choice each candidate can be. Afraid of being labeled not-rabidly-anti-abortion-enough by Republican voters, the candidates have been struggling to one-up both each other and themselves — with anti-choice positions migrating ever further right — in some…
The Ig Nobel awards are given every year by The Annals of Improbable Research to, as Annals puts it, the purveyors of “research that makes you laugh, then think.” The caption-crazed felines I know would call that a LOLWHUT, as in “LOL!…whut?” I’m on record as thinking that the Ig Nobel awards display, alongside their…