Sex Blog Conspiracy

Ciaran60 is fascinating and mysterious, and we think her blog, Dark Musings, is going to become a regular read. It defies easy description. Read “Celebrating a Marriage.” We know three places on her blogroll - and they’re - no surprise - three of our favorite places/reads:

• Always Aroused Girl
• Sexegesis
  
• Fetlife

Ciaran60’s Dark Musings . Worth your time and then some.

Amjur’s Commentary on prosecutorial misconduct (Am Jur, among lawyers, is a contraction of AMerican JURisprudence. “Jurisprudence,” in turn, means the theory and philosophy, the logic, if you will, of law). Amjur demonstrates how, if prosecutors and cops want to generate some headlines, it’s easy to pick on a “pornographer” who hasn’t broken the law, hasn’t filmed or discussed a thing with anyone who wasn’t an enthusiastic or willing participant - just by ignoring evidence that the women (in this case) were in fact adults, and using evidence little more reliable than phrenology to prove that women in photographs were, in fact, underage. (And ignoring the fact that the women were available as witnesses and had signed affidavits).Read Amjur’s account of prosecutorial misconduct here. If that link is too long for your browser (no jokes, please) TinyUrl here.

The title above - if you’re 50 or over - you may remember the television commercial meme of “Brand X.” An advertisers would claim to have conducted blind tests against a “leading competitor” - and display a container entirely blank but for the words “Brand X.” This is a way of saying - this is an attorney with chops. For those of you still having problems with idioms - J.D. Obenberger is a very smart free speech lawyer.And he’s published some very good advice which minimizes the chances and effect of the ethical misconduct described above.

See also J.D. Obenberger’s excellent “Primer on 2257 compliance” and also

• Obenberger & Associates, his Chicago-based law firm
• The Law and the Skin Trade in the Windy City: Police Deception (by Obenberger)

December 17th is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, organized by the Sex Workers Organizing Project (SWOP), It was first conceived of by

Dr. Annie Sprinkle and started by the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA as a memorial and vigil for the victims of the Green River Killer in Seattle Washington. International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers has empowered workers from over cities around the world to come together and organize against discrimination and remember victims of violence. During the week of December 17th, sex worker rights organizations will be staging actions and vigils to raise awareness about violence that is commonly committed against sex workers. The assault, battery, rape and murder of sex workers must end. Existing laws prevent sex workers from reporting violence. The stigma and discrimination that is perpetuated by the prohibitionist laws has made violence against us acceptable. Please join with sex workers around the world and stand against criminalization and violence committed against prostitutes.

In the United States, there’s a Washington march and rally, but if you can’t make that, Annie Sprinkle has a list of other things you can do:

On December 17th, people around the world will be calling attention
to hate crimes against sex workers, namely prostitutes. Here are some
suggestions and options for ways to participate. Or by all means,
make up your own.

1. Do something of personal meaning alone at home; take a ritual
   bath, or simply think about those who have died, light a candle,
   make a wish, have a cry, call a friend and discuss the topic, etc.
   [Read more →]

The difficult exercise is taking a look at this interesting piece of bondage furniture - and ignore Jewell Marceau and Charlotte Brooke. My first question is - is it a piece of bondage furniture, or some other device or furnitute built for a “legitimate” purpose by the villainous Ian Rath?

You can see a larger sample gallery - and others at Fetish Nation.

Jewell Marceau also has a lovely website. (I’ve learned I had been misinformed - she’s not the daughter of Marcel Marceau).

We first saw the fabulous Ms. Berlin at Ian Rath’s Fetish Nation, which we subscribed to for a year or so. So we’re entirely clear - we stopped subscribing because our children have insisted on actually going to classes and getting excellent grades. This made for somewhat weaker arguments in favor of delaying tuition payments and purchasing more first-class porn. And Mr. Rath’s is, in fact, first-class, and especially so, it seems, with certain performers. Just listening to the audio tracks of Ms. Berlin and Mr. Rath is not only funny, because they both are, but hot. Although they tend to be funnier in the beginning and hotter at the end, which is probably just as well.

A digression: writing about sex and sex art, if you’re not in it as a business, isn’t cost-free. And while we certainly
can’t afford all of the subscriptions we’d like, I want people to make some money so that they keep making it. And - to the extent they can make a good living - and I’ve little idea of the economics of the business - I think they’re more likely to take risks and deviate from formulae.I mean here not only Ms. Berlin (who I don’t know), but also some that I do, like our favorite librarian. Said librarian is so smart and writes so well that while we don’t ever want her to stop writing about sex and relationships, we’d pay to read anything she wrote, because we’re always interested in her observations.

So - our first point here is - we may not be able to support all of our favorite pornographers all of the time - but we should all be paying some of our pornographers some of the time. (Yes, I’m paraphrasing Lincoln, but Lincoln’s record on censorship, except about military matters in wartime, was better than, say,Ashcroft’s. Also, Lincoln was known to tell racy stories and was quite the reader. He would have approved, I think).To quote Ms. Berlin herself (and she’s as funny in her blog as she is on film):  .

“Buy my porn, people. I made it for you.”

Our second point is - that when politicians try to capitalize on our national hypocrisy and ambivalence about sex and prosecute people who produce material, with consenting adults, that other people want to read, watch, listen to, and even pay for - we should roundly and loudly object, regardless of the particular flavor or quality of the materials. In a country where sexuality is politicized, pornography is axiomatically political speech.

Personal Disclosure: My first real employment (apart from jobs in school) was in law enforcement. And early on, I was actively and aggressively involved in investigating and prosecuting child pornography and prostitution (”child” for these purposes, being unambiguously pre-pubescent children), as aggressively as we pursued kidnappers, murderers, rapists, and violent racists. The notion of child prostitution is inserted into discussions of consensual pornography the way the recording industry shamelessly claimed that “illegal” music downloads were financing Al Qaeda. It’s an entirely false - and irrelevant - argument.

We are optimistic that the incoming Administration knows that it has better things to do with the People’s monies and resources. But - just because we’re here encouraging you to live happy, fulfilled lives - you have an obligation to object to censorship. In the meantime, we have fun things to tell you about - but we’ve delayed because we felt obliged to rant and scold.

So - because we’ve spent so much time discussing politics - let’s hope it doesn’t become necessary to remind you all again that the Constitution will only protect us if  we protect the Constitution - here’s what you should do:

• Go to the library, and read.
• Then, go to Mz. Berlin’s blog. Read her words, buy her porn. Mz. Berlin writes much better than I do - and she’s funnier and much better-looking. And she’s got a website and a  blog  - and if she keeps going at this rate we may urge her to run for office. When’s the next California governor’s race?
  
• Then visit Fetish Nation. Ian Rath, we think, takes the best photographs of Ms. Berlin. On the other hand, if he’s ever taken a bad photograph, he must have put someone else’s name on it. He’s got a blog, which is either new or I’m betraying my ignorance, which, in any case, is vast.
• Join Fetlife. It’s not a non sequitur, or if it is, you’ll still be happy about it.

I’ve been reminded that we’ve had in our house a number of discussions about Mr. Rath and his oeuvre. The beautiful blond from Kansas - whose sexual appetites, interests and observations are as amazing as her taste in men is questionable - finds Mr. R. (and quite a number of his on-screen colleagues, too) exceedingly attractive - has wondered if there isn’t a second, much more exclusive line at Fetish Nation - “Doesn’t he ever take his clothes off?” she’s wondered aloud, more than once. Mr. R. may, in fact, be her favorite male adult performer.

Part of this is that he’s just a really good-looking man - with a lot of presence, very funny, and unquestionably very smart. So we think that he has a thing for very smart women - viz. Ms. Berlin, and something about the charming/clever conversations gets the villain in him going - and that’s why his work is all so hot - but, as we noted before, funnier at the beginning, Very seriously hot by the end.

Unspeakable Axe has an interesting discussion of professional sex relationships, when one or both wants it to become personal.

This subject popped in my brain again recently when a Pro I know mentioned it:

“I find that the BEST relationships are in fact those that go from client to personal. Because there is this anonymity that sessions allow and somehow encourage honesty. Then the bonds are slowly formed without any of the b.s. vanilla that tends to creep in and take away from what really forms that connection with the other person.”

But - because he’s a complicated, thoughtful man - the discussion gets more complicated. From Client To Personal Fucktoy on Unspeakable Axe.

Kind Girls - sample still and video galleries - a bit vanilla for most who come here - but on the other hand - a wide representation of the best varieties of vanilla, with new galleries every day. Some samples:

Kind Girls.

This is the least revealing photo I’ve found of Cara Lott - and I wanted the most modest because - hotness aside - the net effect of reading about her and looking at a bunch of images gave me the impression of a warm, interesting and gorgeous woman. And I thought that even the most demure photos would show some of that warmth and character. The rest of the samples I saw on her site - and her Fetlife profile - it would take quite a lot of concentration not to react the way that, in fact, I reacted. A lot of her work is not easily available - but she’s attempting to assemble a complete filmography and collection. But at least some of her currently available work can be found here. [Having some trouble with WordPress accepting the hyperlink - so here it is: http://store.mallcom.com/?a=27246] 

Aha! We’ve found what might be a more demure photo - but we can’t remove the first one - so we’ll leave the rest to your imagination for the moment, and, with her blessing, a more complete and intense gallery - perhaps even a video clip - soon.

Of course, never would have heard of Ms. Cara Lott if it hadn’t been for Fetlife - and our new friend Tasha Lee (shameless namedropping, but we’re actually on first-name terms with her, so aren’t we entitled?).

Links:

Cara Lott

Bum Rap Productions

Some of Mr. Carey’s latest work; he’s been experimenting with using the streets of New York - but not, I think, just as background. In my mind, the slices of the city combined with this muscular, strong woman so immobilized - become, if not a character, suggestive of a longer more complex narrative. The same events, happening behind closed doors might not have the same risk of exposure, not so much prelude and time in transit. A longer, more interesting story. (We love his work - but let’s be honest - he’s an overachiever. Brilliant photographer, bondage rigger, clothing designer - and we hear he’s also a competitive poker player. Oh, and he can write, too).

Check out most - but not all of - his talents at Stark-Arts (Which is to say, he doesn’t seem to be able to play poker and take amazing photographs at the same time). .