In Rhode Island, by an oversight of the criminal code indoor prostitution was legal until just recently; in Reno Nevada it’s still legal. Next door in California, anyone convicted of prostuitution could face up to one year in prison and $1,000 fine. Las Vegas and Atlantic City used to be the only places you could […]
When last I visited my Seattle boyfriend, we were holding hands in public on our way to a movie in the downtown area. After many years of therapy and self-work to rid myself of abusive religion in my childhood, I was proud of myself for being so comfortable — almost unconscious about expressing basic affection […]
Something that our communities, small and insular as we may be, have on many others, is how we take care of our own. Sure, many faith based communities have holiday programs and outreach throughout the year. However, very few identity based communities, particularly ones around activities and relationships, take the time and energy to support […]
In an earlier column I discussed the idea of kinky community as a collection of smaller groups rather than one great behemoth. I looked at the idea that perhaps we have gotten so large, so encompassing in our demographics and sub-groups that one definition of ‘us’ is ill-fitting and due for a makeover. The bigger […]
One of the things that each marginalized community needs to work on learning is that we must support our allies in other communities, in order to ask them to support us. As a member of several marginalized communities, as well as a staunch ally to others, it so saddens me when I see the division […]
Last weekend was another example of wishing I could be in two places at once. I was originally going to be attending the Good Vibrations “Sex Summit”, a day-long conference featuring some of the most coveted educators and activists in the field. It seems that almost every weekend, across the USA, there is some sort […]
In 1994, Pat Califia committed her thoughts on gender, sexuality, censorship, kink, prostitution, safer sex, and leather to print in a book titled Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. As an outspoken, self-identified leather dyke, Califia took on laymen and academics alike for “white-washing” and “sanitizing” sex and its transformative and radical abilities. She […]
Often those that participate in kink, BDSM, and alternative lifestyles like to think of themselves as social outlaws, people that live and love on the edge. They view themselves as renegades and outsiders, shirking the rule of mainstream society. And, in some ways, I suppose this is true. In comparison to mainstream culture, kink is […]
Sometimes, when I take a moment to look around the dungeon and really take in all the scenes that are happening and the conversations going on, I start to feel as though being kinky has become a competitive sport. When I first entered the kink and BDSM community, it was more of the old guard […]
There I was, like so many others in the lunchrooms of corporate America, watching a coworker read 50 Shades of Grey. She asked my opinion, and I politely declined to share it. I haven’t read the book. I’m not interested in passing judgment on the book. Plenty of other folks have read it and rendered […]