The trailer:
Orgams Inc. - February 9th.
in Orgasm
A montage of homophobia.
Film: Desert Flower.
The Emergency Bra.
in Breasts
Bra that doubles as a gas mask and won the Ig Nobel Prize is now on sale
The Emergency Bra, a brassiere that can turn into two life-saving gas masks for victims of biological warfare won the 2009 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize. It just went on sale via this website, which describes the invention as "an "Emergency Bra, Nursing Bra, Two Face Masks [and] Strapless bra."
The bra, available in sizes 32B to 40C, came as a result of Chernobyl. Seriously.
[Dr. Elena] Bodnar studied the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and found that, as Fox News reports, "if people had had cheap, readily available gas masks in the first hours after the disaster ... they may have avoided breathing in Iodine-131, which causes radiation." She also envisions it being useful in terrorist attacks. "You have to be prepared all the time, at any place, at any moment, and practically every woman wears a bra," she said.
The homepage for the Emergency Bra is here.
Freud versus Jung.
In the new movie A Dangerous Method, by one of my all-time favourite directors David Cronenberg (thanks for passing it along, Eva!):
The film appears to be getting decent reviews: link.
A Republican jumps ship.
For those of you not familiar with American politics, the Republicans are much like the Conservatives here in Canada, only they're more extreme in terms of their ideology. Republicans almost universally oppose same-sex marriage, so Republican politicians like this are very rare (and very courageous):
Thursday mail - January 12.
Have any questions or comments related to class or otherwise? If so, fire away.
Dodson and Ross.
I regularly post videos from these lovely ladies, who are two of the best sex educators ever. The following clip is relevant to this week's topic:
One more of Sue Johanson.
in Sex Ed
Passed along by Jeanne (thanks!):
More PostSecrets.
in Humour Etc.
A lesson.
From Kate or Die, via Katie West:
Not all dudes who do this are creeps - many just don't get it. Someone needs to teach a class in reading non-verbal cues (i.e., body language, silence, etc.), erring on the side of being less creepy rather than more creepy, the cultural context of men hitting on women, and how to tell if someone is really not interested (although it's not always obvious).
Fanny Hill.
As a follow-up to the email and poem sent along by Chantel, showing that the Victorian era may not have been as sexually repressive as I painted it to be, I did a little more digging around and discovered the novel, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known as Fanny Hill). It is considered the first prose pornography ever published, at least in the English world. The author, John Cleland, wrote Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure while in debtor's prison. The novel, which was published in two instalments, is a series of explicit letters written by a very young woman (15) to another woman.
Here's an representative excerpt from the book:
...and now, disengag’d from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant. Its prodigious size made me shrink again; yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and even ventur’d to feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory! perfectly well turn’d and fashion’d, the proud stiffness of which distended its skin, whose smooth polish and velvet softness might vie with that of the most delicate of our sex, and whose exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root, through the jetty sprigs of which the fair skin shew’d as in a fine evening you may have remark’d the clear light ether through the branchwork of distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill: then the broad and blueish-cast incarnate of the head, and blue serpentines of its veins, altogether compos’d the most striking assemblage of figure and colours in nature. In short, it stood an object of terror and delight.
But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural curiosity, through the want of occasions in the strictness of his home-breeding, and the little time he had been in town not having afforded him one, was hitherto an absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all that manhood he was so nobly stock’d with; and it now fell to my lot to stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part of me, which such an oversiz’d machine was very fit to lay in ruins.
Sue Johanson on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
in Sex Ed, Humour Etc.
Sue Johanson, who I mentioned in class last week (thanks for passing it along Jeanne!), on one of the funniest shows in Canada:
Not what I thought.
Chantel emailed this after class last week (thanks!):
I didn't want to get too much into it in yesterday's lecture but the 16th- 18th Centuries were more sexually liberated than you think. Besides Henry VIII and his countless affairs (think Anne Boleyn, which lead to the break from the Catholic church), there was The Earl of Rochester and Aphra Behn, who both published poems about impotent men (Rochester's being the more crude of the two). I thought I'd pass them along in case you were interested, Behn's is longer and requires more deciphering but Rochester's is easy to understand and really funny.
The Imperfect Enjoyment By John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms, I filled with love, and she all over charms; Both equally inspired with eager fire, Melting through kindness, flaming in desire. With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace, [5] She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face. Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed Swift orders that I should prepare to throw The all-dissolving thunderbolt below. [10] My fluttering soul, sprung with the painted kiss, Hangs hovering o'er her balmy brinks of bliss. But whilst her busy hand would guide that part Which should convey my soul up to her heart, In liquid raptures I dissolve all o'er, [15] Melt into sperm, and spend at every pore. A touch from any part of her had done't: Her hand, her foot, her very look's a cunt.
Smiling, she chides in a kind murmuring noise, And from her body wipes the clammy joys, [20] When, with a thousand kisses wandering o'er My panting bosom, "Is there then no more?" She cries. "All this to love and rapture's due; Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?"
But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive, [25] To show my wished obedience vainly strive: I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive. Eager desires confound my first intent, Succeeding shame does more success prevent, And rage at last confirms me impotent. [30] Ev'n her fair hand, which might bid heat return To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn, Applied to my dead cinder, warms no more Than fire to ashes could past flames restore. Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry, [35] A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie. This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried, With virgin blood ten thousand maids have dyed; Which nature still directed with such art That it through every cunt reached every heart — [40] Stiffly resolved, 'twould carelessly invade Woman or man, nor aught its fury stayed: Where'er it pierced, a cunt it found or made — Now languid lies in this unhappy hour, Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower. [45]
Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame, False to my passion, fatal to my fame, Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove So true to lewdness, so untrue to love? What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore [50] Didst thou e'er fail in all thy life before? When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way, With what officious haste dost thou obey! Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets, [55] But if his king or country claim his aid, The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head; Ev'n so thy brutal valour is displayed, Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade, But when great Love the onset does command, [60] Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar'st not stand. Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most, Through all the town a common fucking-post, On whom each whore relieves her tingling cunt As hogs do rub themselves on gates and grunt, [65] May'st thou to ravenous chancres be a prey, Or in consuming weepings waste away; May strangury and stone thy days attend; May'st thou ne'er piss, who did refuse to spend When all my joys did on false thee depend. [70]
And may ten thousand abler pricks agree To do the wronged Corinna right for thee.
The Virgin Diaries.
Thanks Jess for passing this along!
A group of four women from Abbotsford run a blog called Confessions of a 29 Year Old Virgin (link here). From the blog:
We are 4 girls, living the life! A Life full of Passion, Love, Joy, Goodness and Purity! We haven't gotten to this point in our lives without our share of tears and laughter, so we want to tell you about it! Our lives are stories of Redemption and Goodness, Enjoy being brought into our lives by reading our hearts!
The blog caught the attention of TLC, and the four women are now featured in the show The Virgin Diaries. The show follows the stories of several virgins (some of who have supposedly reclaimed their virginity, despite having already had sex), waiting for marriage.
Here's a clip about the show from Ellen DeGeneres:
Miranda Nelson, of the Georgia Straight, had this to say about the posse of Abbotsford virgins:
Abbotsford virginity bloggers neglect to realize selling chastity is selling sex
Danielle Michaud, Amy Schmidt, Lisa Marziali, and Tamara Larson are virgins—and proud of it.
In fact, this quartet of Abbotsford women, who maintain the blog Confessions of a 29 Year Old Virgin, are so proud of being virgins that they've leveraged their chaste confessional into an appearance on a TLC reality show called The Virgin Diaries, in which they will date some dudes, men who are also virgins.
These women, all 29 or 30, have never had sex. Well, not exactly; one's a "born-again virgin", who says she's reclaimed her virginity. (Not sure where she reclaimed it from; is there some virginity coat check I don't know about?)
"We're in a culture filled with sex, where sex sells. And it's sold every day," Lisa Marziali told the National Post. "And we believe it shouldn't be sold."
Guess what, ladies? By selling virginity, you are selling sex. You are selling the idea that a woman's value is completely tied to what she's allowing—or not allowing—between her legs.
"Whether it's delivered through a virginity pledge or by a barely dressed tween pop singer writhing across the television screen, the message is the same: A woman's worth lies in her ability — or her refusal — to be sexual," Jessica Valenti writes in her 2009 book, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.
"We're just looking for a guy who has a heart after God, and who is man enough to pursue us," said Marziali, who confessed that she's already nicknamed her future saviour, I mean husband: "The Rock Star".
Read the rest of the not-particularly-supportive article here.
Documentary: The Virgin Daughters.
This is the documentary that I mentioned in class.
Thursday mail - January 5.
Have any questions or comments related to class or otherwise? If so, fire away.
Incest prank goes viral.
From the NY Daily News, and reported all over the place:
During the pep rally, several captains of the school’s sport teams were lined up against a wall in the gymnasium, wearing blindfolds.
They were told they would be kissed by a “special someone,” ABC News reported, not knowing that person would be their parent.
The video shows one woman, presumed to be the mother of the blindfolded boy with whom she’s locking lips, grabbing her son’s hand and placing it in the back pocket of her jeans.
Another student, after an unknowing makeout session with his mother, was asked if he knew who his kissing partner was. All he knew, he said, is that she had “luscious lips.”
While flooded without outside complaints, Wollersheim told the Associated Press that he had received no objections from the school’s athletes or parents.
In fact, he’s gotten some positive feedback, he said.
“I think people need to have more of a sense of humor! Kudos to you for all that you do – as I do not feel as a parent there was anything offensive about the video,” wrote one person in an email, which Wollersheim shared with the news service.
Still, Wollersheim understands the gravity of the concern sparked by the video.
“As principal, I’m responsible for everything that happens in this school,” he said. “This event offended people, and pep fests should have nothing that offends people.”
Read the rest of the article here.
And, of course, the video:
Isreali safe sex ad.
Somewhat not-safe-for-work (NSFW) and full of man-on-man action:
