p.s.

I've pretty much given up trying to update my blogroll-it seems to have fallen to classic Hoarders'/Clutterers' Syndrome-but I need to say that this woman and her blog are full of win.

Socialism meets sex-pos

over at this Carnival of Socialism edition hosted by Boffy's blog. looks interesting...

Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy

is up over at Renegade's. check it out.

We briefly interrupt this quasi-non-hiatus to say: Fuck Amazon.com

Here's why. It's not just affecting LGBT "adult" books either. Also see re: why it matters.

If you'd like to let them know your feelings, here's their express customer service form. or call 1-866-216-1072. or just join the boycott.

good a reason to patronize indies as much as possible anyway. Powell's still seems to be okay, also.

eta: "Book Depot" in the UK looks promising. free worldwide delivery!

eta again: someone cynical theorizes this is a sophisticated trolling effort of some sort. if so, as far as I'm concerned all it means is "hey, still another party is (also) an EPIC asshole!"

and, this is also not the first time this sort of thing has been discussed wrt Amazon, apparently.

but, yeah. "lulz." wtfever. well, hey, if it turns out to be the case I guess we'll hear it from the PR eventually. can't wait for it. so far the response, "skeleton crew" or not, has been less than satisfactory.

In other but sort of thematically related postage: I can't get behind lesbian comic author Erika Moen anymore, much as I've liked a lot of her cartoons in the past. Here's why. And disgusted with Annalee Newitz--another person I -wanted- to like-- for similar reasons: here's why. (including comments section).

O.K. Really, I'm...busy. no more blogging for a while. hold my calls. Really. Oh, and happy Zombie Rabbits And Candy Eating Day.

p.s. Doctor Who special was v. disappointing. why can't Tennant stick around for Moffat? whhyyyyyyy???

later to all 7.8 of my readers...

ETA okay, whether he's actually behind it or not, I think we can all agree that "Weev" is a smug entitled POS

Hay dude. Amazon removed its customer-based reporting of adult books yesterday. I guess my game is up! Here's a nice piece I like to call "how to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code".

I really hate reputation systems based on user input. This started a while back on Craigslist, when I was trying to score chicks to do heroin with. My listings like "looking to get tarred and pleasured" and "Searching for a heroine to do the paronym of this sentence's lexical subject" kept getting flagged. The audacity of the San Francisco gay community disgusted me. They would flag my ads down but searching craigslist for "pnp" or "tina" reveals tons of hairy dudes searching for other hairy dudes to do meth with. So I decided to get them back, and cause a few hundred thousand queers some outrage.

I'm logged into Amazon at the time and see it has a "report as inappropriate" feature at the bottom of a page. I do a quick test on a few sets of gay books. I see that I can get them removed from search rankings with an insignificant number of votes.

I do this for a while, but never really get off my ass to scale it until recently.

[some code which I have no fucking idea about really]

...and I have a neat little list of the internal product ID of every fag book on Amazon.

Now from here it was a matter of getting a lot of people to vote for the books. The thing about the adult reporting function of Amazon was that it was vulnerable to something called "Cross-site request forgery'. This means if I referred someone to the URL of the successful complaint, it would register as a complaint if they were logged in. So now it is a numbers game.

I know some people who run some extremely high traffic (Alexa top 1000) websites. I show them my idea, and we all agree that it is pretty funny. They put an invisible iframe in their websites to refer people to the complaint URLs which caused huge numbers of visitors to report gay and lesbian items as inappropriate without their knowledge.

I also hired third worlders to register accounts for me en masse.

...The combination of these two actions resulted in a mass delisting of queer books being delisted from the rankings at Amazon.

I guess my game is up, but 300+ hits on google news for amazon gay and outrage across the blogosphere
ain't so bad.

Funny. Really funny.

More on why Amazon still isn't off the hook:

What I think is going on: there is a severe vulnerability in the Amazon flagging-for-inappropriate system, and it's been found and exploited by one or more nerds with too much time on their hands. Amazon's mistake, vis a vis the brave new world of social media, is two-fold:

Refusing to acknowledge a vulnerability. People are reaching the point not just that they like transparency in dealing with people who hold lots of important info on their behalf, but they are coming to demand it. Amazon's "nothing more to see here" approach is damaging to the relationship they have with those outraged by the exploit.
Refusing to acknowledge the pain of affected people. If you have an entire relationship built on trust (with personal info, with commitments to move products, with referrals and wishlists, etc), you have the obligation to have that uncomfortable sit-down when a betrayal is introduced to the relationship. Amazon hasn't done that yet. Yikes.
There's a livejournal blogger out there now claiming responsibility for the exploit. I won't link over, because I actually think he's full of crap, as do those who've attempted to reproduce his exploitative code. It's a well known practice for those with no skillz to take responsibility for things they have no part of to build up their hacker cred. Please. You know what tipped me off, for the record? The references to wanting to have anonymous sex with women and heroin from Craigslist. Fetishy-objectifying of women is common in the hacker community, for sure, but this guy is just… silly.

This doesn't mean that someone didn't come up with something similar– I'm almost positive they did. Which means that Amazon has a serious problem, and they better have a better explanation than the "glitch."

There's a bigger picture here: cultural implications

From a tech point of view, recommendation systems and flag-as-inappropriate tools that aren't built to handle gaming the system are just no good. It's unacceptable that a masterminding giant such as Amazon wasn't prepared for this kind of attack. Especially considering how much it affects Amazon's contract and relationship with the people that provide them with the goods its users demand, and how much users trust Amazon to do the Right Thing.

On a wider cultural scale, as I'd mentioned in the article in the WMC, the cultural implications of these attacks — especially when it's big enough to get this kind of attention — are huge. Geek culture is one of the last vestiges of an overtly sexist and toxic environment for anyone who's not a straight guy, most likely white and middle-class. (Not limited to the nerds of computer love, either– check out this post on misogyny and comic books from Amptoons.) When these attacks occur, it reveals not just the hatred that the hackers themselves have for women and LGBT folk, but the wider cultural intolerance we still have running rampant.

...Some would react by clamping on the anonymity, the level of free speech and the accountability, often all at once. Sure, keeping trolls off your comments section is probably a good idea. Enacting laws making it impossible to operate independently and anonymously online? Bad idea. Very bad. We need to be addressing the root causes of our misogyny, our racism, our homophobia — not piling on bandaids, duct tape and bailing twine to keep people's mouths shut...

Chay Magaine #3 is out

a publication about sex in Pakistani society, from a feminist and gender-inclusive perspective.

Check out the latest feature articles, lots of good stuff.

Extending Feminist Carnival for Sexual Freedom and Autonomy deadline one more time, to November 3.

Both to give myself a chance to look over the current entries and give other people a chance to get in entries under the wire over the weekend. It'll go up on Monday (the 3rd).

General guidelines for this carnival here.

Some thematic suggestions (suggestions only) for this edition:

-Halloween: "Trick or treat," or "come as you aren't." Costume, role-play, illusion, trickery, sugar: what roles do any of these play in sexuality? Make it personal or political or both.

-Day of the Dead: The veils are thin this time of year. Connections between sex and spirituality, and/or sex and the transcendent, if you prefer. (they call it "the little death" for a reason). Dark or light or anywhere in between.

-Election season in the U.S. Specific electoral battles such as Prop K in San Francisco, or more broad-ranging political pieces.

Also particularly interested in pieces exploring intersectionality with sexuality, including but not limited to: being of color, being queer, being genderqueer, being trans, having a disability, body issues in general, class issues, cultural issues, religion. Again, both personal and political.

Also, too, U.S. election notwithstanding, looking for pieces from folks outside the U.S. and particularly outside other Anglophone countries as well (U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand).

Feel free to nominate your own work or someone else's. Multiple submissions are fine.

Send to:

belledame222 AT gmail DOT com

p.s. Happy Halloween!

Carnival of Feminist Sexual Freedom and Autonomy: submit!

So, yes, I'm hosting this next edition. The scheduled date is for October 27. Because I suck and let time get away from me & forgot I have a paper due this week, I'd like to give a little more time for people to get their entries in; so unless Lina or anyone strenuously objects, I'm going to say: carnival goes up on Friday the 31st, deadline for submission midnight Oct. 30.

General guidelines for this carnival here.

Some thematic suggestions (suggestions only) for this edition:

-Halloween: "Trick or treat," or "come as you aren't." Costume, role-play, illusion, trickery, sugar: what roles do any of these play in sexuality? Make it personal or political or both.

-Day of the Dead: The veils are thin this time of year. Connections between sex and spirituality, and/or sex and the transcendent, if you prefer. (they call it "the little death" for a reason). Dark or light or anywhere in between.

-Election season in the U.S. Specific electoral battles such as Prop K in San Francisco, or more broad-ranging political pieces.

Also particularly interested in pieces exploring intersectionality with sexuality, including but not limited to: being of color, being queer, being genderqueer, being trans, having a disability, body issues in general, class issues, cultural issues, religion. Again, both personal and political.

Also, too, U.S. election notwithstanding, looking for pieces from folks outside the U.S. and particularly outside other Anglophone countries as well (U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand).

Feel free to nominate your own work or someone else's. Multiple submissions are fine.

Send to:

belledame222 AT gmail DOT com

by October 30.

Good luck! Happy writing/reading.

Carnival of Feminist Sexual Freedom and Autonomy

up at XXBN.

Next edition: right here! on October 27. See here for general information about the Carnival and how to submit entries. Guidelines/suggestions for this edition to follow; stay tuned.

Quote of the day, 8/1/08

from the comments of this post:

"critics of porn and sex work often bring to the table their own notions of what sex is and take that as normative."

--Linnaeus

I think you may have a point there. This was initially my problem at least. Then I saw pie porn and I figured that if a banana cream pie actually aroused people, then I have no useful frame for other people's sexual desires.

--Kristen, responding

Carnival!

Launch edition of the Carnival of Progressive Christians is up at A Secret Chord.

and then, belatedly, the latest Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy at Kaleidoglide.

Quote of the day, 6/12/08

Unlike Winston, [Julia] had grasped the inner meaning of the Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way she put it was:

"When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear for you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?"

That was very true, he thought...For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force?

--Orwell, 1984

Getting off on power exchange is BadWrong, let me tell you it.

Yeah, it's That Time again, apparently. I'm sort of going off a general overview of the thread, any number of previous threads which sounded a -lot- like this one, and the understanding that I agree with RE's rant here, and have taken pretty much that tone in previous go-rounds. Because for whatever reason (the heat, maybe, or the sheer number of times I feel like all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again), I'm not even feeling Ze Rage this time. So, I thought I'd take advantage of my relative, well, it ain't Zen, but it's something, and say a little something. Again.

I'll just say that I am -very- suspicious whenever anyone starts to hold forth about how they -used- to like act X, but now, praise Jesus/Dworkin/Nicolosi/Cthulhu, I have SEEN the LIGHT! and my sexuality has -totally changed,- and -yours can and SHOULD, too- (is the implicit and/or even explicit addedendum).

First of all, I don't think sexuality works like that: yes, it can be malleable and change over the years, but ime and in everything I've come to understand, it is -not- particularly amenable to change because one -wills- it so, because one's newfound political/religious/otherwise ideological -belief- decrees that it -must- be so in order for one to be a whole and good person. You don't get rid of the shadow by stuffing it down.

Secondly, in my experience...people like this, often enough, especially when it comes to kink, are...rather selective, quite possibly not consciously, when it comes to deciding what does and doesn't now qualify as the Bad Bad Thing.

f'r instance: w/in feminism, to take one example I recall seeing a while back: the idea that BDSM is a Bad Bad Thing, meaning a) leather and whips b) particularly, maledom/femsub anything, including any sort of non-implement-including getting off on penetration; -but- c) donning a strap-on and doing one's male partner and getting enjoyment -specifically- out of "whoo, I'm penetrating -him-, what a rush!- is totally fine and not at all suggestive of power!sex; it's just, you know, this...thing I happen to like." O.K.

As it happens, personally, I am turned on by certain kinds of femtop!malebottom much more than I am the reverse; always have, since long before I read any theory or even knew what the terms meant. I don't doubt that my kinks, such as they are, were formed in the same long-ago not-really-consciously-articulate cauldron that all my other erotic general themes were formed, more or less; and that sure, these particular let's say bents at least may well have at least partly to do with stuff I was unconsciously picking up about social messages about what was or wasn't taboo. But that doesn't make me a better feminist, or mean that if for whatever reason I decided tomorrow that you know, I really shouldn't get off on this stuff, I should stop enjoying thus and so and learn to enjoy this other thing, it would be any more successful than when I was trying to be a good little heterosexual, because -that's- what I thought I was -supposed- to be -then.-

Because, see, if there's one thing sexuality doesn't generally do, it's lie down and act like it's "supposed to." Regardless of where the directive is coming from. It's deeper and quirkier and more complicated than that. It's not that one (o the overused term) "examine" what it all MEANS, dear, but ultimately: it will not lie down and fit into your Procrustean bed. It needs, like the rest of the squidgier bits of the unconscious, to be taken on its own terms. Fuck, that's what "examination" -is-, it seems to me. The theory is shaped by What Is Found There, not the other way around. And, well, One Size Does Not Fit All.

And at the end of the day, also, frankly, again, what she said.

x-posted at SM Feminists

Female Desire/Beauty Appreciation Week: the "What About Teh Menz" edition

Kwon Sang Woo

Because, hey, I am all about equal opportunity objectification, even if slightly choosier with my objects on this side of the aisle. Lots of aesthetic appreciation here for sure, though, plus, spot the fangirl (eyeroll). As with the female OOD post (AKA POST WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF WOMEN PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PERUSE AND COMMENT), many of these cribbed from the excellent skywardprodigal, with some additions of my own interspersed. Enjoy.

Kian Mitchum

Gordon Modibame

Shunei Hosimi

Renald Seme

Jo Ji Hoon

Porter Garner

Tyler Christopher

Anthony Stewart Head

Won Bin

Djimon Honsou

Nir Lavi

Daniel Henney

James Marsters

Michael C Hall in "Cabaret"

Anderson Cooper

Kevin Aviance

source

David Tennant and Billie Piper

Anthony Stewart Head, David Walliams, and a very frustrated policeman

John Barrowman & Eve Myles

Alvin Goh & friend

Michael C Hall & Matthew St. Patrick ("Six Feet Under")

Kim Sung Soo & friend

from a play called "Dorian"

Ian Somerhalder & friend

Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung(?) ("Happy Together")

John Barrowman and James Marsters ("Torchwood")

David Tennant & co-stars in "Casanova"

David Tennant

Female* sexual desire and/or beauty appreciation week

Liya Kebede

Lauren Ambrose objectifying Mena Suvari in "Six Feet Under"

(*personally would also welcome expressions of queer/genderqueer desire by not-necessarily-female persons)

...has been informally declared and is being celebrated, among other places, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Since I'm both lazy this week and in awe of this woman's efforts to display the gorgeous, week after week, I'm going to kick this off by both paying her homage and shamelessly lifting some of my favorite images from her treasure trove (hope that's all right). Yes, she has way, way more where these came from--98 pages' worth of women alone, and a whole passel of gentlemen (almost as many as women), and art pics to boot. Thanks, skywardprodigal, you are an inspiration, truly.

You can also see my contributions to earlier versions of this celebration on my other page. Also see this recent post for teh slash, I guess.

Most of the following, then, are cribbed shamelessly from skywardprodigal, with a few additions of my own, can't be arsed to remember for positive which now alas--a Maggie Cheung, I think, Aishwarya Rai, and some Alex Kingston. (ETA: and Rachel Weisz, and Grace Park, and Kera Knightley, and...screw it, I lost track. sorry if I broke anyone's Internets).

Sunna Gottshalk

Freema Agyeman

Lauren Ambrose

Grace Park

Patricia Clarkson

Justina Machado

Eve Myles

Nichelle Nichols

Aishwarya Rai

Lucy Lawless

Sheryl Lee Ralph

Rachel Weisz

Naoko Mori

Alex Kingston

Wang Wenquin

Frances Conroy

Kiera Knightley

Lisa Nicole Carson

Mumaith Khan

Mena Suvari

Renee Cox

Sandra Oh

Heidi Klum

Gong Li

Josephine Rukia

Tina Baltzer

Aimee Mullins

Maggie Cheung

Pam Grier

Joan Chen

Michelle Rodriguez

Sophia Myles



Julie Nicol

Caroline Chikezie

Madhuri Dixit

Katee Sackhoff & Mary McDonnell

Meryl Streep & Anne Hathaway

Omahyra Mota & friend

Anna Cleveland and Pat Cleveland

Maggie Cheung & co-star

Omahyra Mota and Boyd Holbrook

Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez

Aimee Mullins & Matthew Barney ("Cremaster")


Carmen Del'Orifice & friend

Indira Varma and Sarita Choudhury



Brandi Quinones & friends

Gena Rowlands