BDSM ~ Random Stories in Current News

I have News Alerts sent to me daily covering certain keywords from News Providers World Wide thanks to one of the options that Google provides. I am aware that Evil Geoff has a thread dealing with human rights and legislation in regards to BDSM practise. After a brief email to him and another to Angelic Assassin it seems that there may be some here that would be interested in a Thread covering other areas that a current and media worthy. Some will be serious, others fashion orientated , some completely off task from my experience with them. Placing them here has no agenda or endorsement from myself , I will simply be posting them and others who use the Forum can do as they please , comment, ignore , hijack or otherwise.............

SOME STORIES COVERED
There will be some stories posted on this thread that do no pertain to sexual acts between consenting adults. Time to time I will post them for varying reasons from in accurate media portrayl to how society may perceive terms we frequently use . Example : 'sadist'.

Many of the ugly incidents/crimes described are NOT performed upon consenting adults. They were are often by criminals against vulnerable people - without consent. This is not sexual freedom; it is abuse.

My placing them on the Thread is not to cast dispersions on a mostly decent alternative lifestyles community. They are in fact 'examples' . Use your own discretion in regards to these matters please.

Kind regards

@}-}rebecca----

________________________________________________________________________________

Rights body steps into world of sexual quirks
The complainant says Vancouver police discriminated against him

Ian Mulgrew
Vancouver Sun

Friday, December 30, 2005

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will investigate sexual practices involving "bondage, discipline and submission, sadism and masochism" to determine whether a self-described pagan was discriminated against by the Vancouver police department.

In a preliminary 18-page ruling issued Thursday, the tribunal said there may be merit in Peter Hayes' complaint that he lost a potential limo driver's job when a police officer refused him a chauffeur's permit seemingly because of his religious beliefs and sexual preferences.

Lindsay M. Lyster, who wrote the decision, said she wasn't completely sure of the "precise nature of Mr. Hayes' lifestyle, practices and preferences, nor the parties' use of the term BDSM (to refer to bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism) or other related terms," but it sounded like he had a legitimate beef



"That Mr. Hayes suffered an adverse impact as a result of the respondents' actions is, on the facts alleged, clear, as he was denied a chauffeur's permit and lost the opportunity to work," she wrote.

"It is also reasonable to assume, for the purposes of the present decision, that invasive questioning and judgmental statements about his sexual practices would have had a subjectively negative impact on his dignity."

Hayes filed his complaint in early summer after applying for the permit required for the job he had been offered with a limo company.

At the VPD, Hayes said the officer on duty, Kevin Barker, kept him waiting 90 minutes while serving five other people, including two who arrived after him.

Eventually, Hayes maintained, Barker took him to a small room, asked why he was wearing black clothes and told him he was being denied the permit because a woman in 2003 suggested he was involved in a cult.

No one from the force ever called Hayes about that complaint and the cult named was actually the title of a science fiction book -- Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman. The woman, Hayes insisted, was an angry former lover.

Hayes said Barker wouldn't give him many details, except to say the concern had to do with paganism, Wiccan magic as well as role-playing, master-slave sexual practices. He added that he was told he posed "an extreme risk of recruiting passengers/customers into my cult during my work hours if I were granted the chauffeur's permit."

The police department, however, argues that Hayes' behaviour does not fall within the meaning of "sexual orientation" under the human rights legislation.

"In our submission, sexual orientation is separate and distinct from preferences or behaviours while engaging in sex," the department said. "The legislature has not gone so far as to prohibit discrimination on the basis of preferences or behaviour."

If you ask me, that borders on a wilful misreading of the law.

The courts have long said consensual bondage or sado-masochism is part of normal and acceptable adult sexual behaviour that does not offend community standards. To start splitting "orientation" and "behaviour" is to enter the realm of angels and pinheads.

Such a point of view would limit protection on the basis of sexual orientation to discrimination on the basis of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or heterosexual. The heterosexual North Vancouver student taunted with false homosexual slurs, for instance, would have been denied redress.

Human rights legislation, as the B.C. Supreme Court has said, is intended to preclude and rectify the wrongful oppression of the weak by the strong and the disadvantaged by the advantaged. The Court of Appeal has emphasized the focus of human rights analysis should be on the effect of the impugned conduct, rather than the intent of the perpetrators.

Those are the issues here.


Still, while aware of that legal history, Lyster said she would allow the VPD a chance to buttress its case.

"Before the tribunal decides if it should accept the complaint based on the grounds of sexual orientation the parties are invited to make submission about whether the facts, as presented, if proven, could amount to a contravention of the Code, on the protected grounds of sexual orientation," she wrote.

Lyster suggested the tribunal solicit expert evidence to determine whether those who practise BDSM have "like homosexuals, historically been subjected to disadvantage, stereotyping and discrimination; and whether those who are drawn to such activities, like homosexuals, share 'a deeply personal characteristic that is either unchangeable or changeable only at unacceptable personal costs'. . . ."

For me, that the VPD is defending in this manner the alleged conduct of the officer is a scandalous waste of tax money; that the tribunal could not find a less expensive and more effective way to handle this situation is equally sad.

You might like this thread . From memory there is also another similar one which sprang up a couple of months ago.

Catalina

catalina_francisco said:

You might like this thread . From memory there is also another similar one which sprang up a couple of months ago.

Catalina

Click to expand...

Cool. Thank You Catalina. I have reposted at the thread you made me aware of. Can You kill/remove this thread please or am I able to ?

regards

@}-}rebecca----

EDIT
Idea for original Thread was posting BDSM News as a specific genre. Posting directly in line of a thread that covers news of War and the associated and very serious implications of such seems disrespectful to me especially as at times this thread make take on some fairly frivolous news items.

Pleasure Principles
Enfield dominatrix Michelle Silva´s business was busted, her gear confiscated. What was her crime? Police appear to believe it could have e been ¨prostitution.¨ But experts say that could be hard to prove.

by Meir Rinde - December 29, 2005
COURTESY EMPRESS M
Feature
Silva has described a police raid on her home last month as an attack on her free speech.
Enfield dominatrix Michelle Silva has described a police raid on her home last month as an attack on her free speech rights and a scare tactic by a town straining for a justification to shut her down. But initially no one knew for sure why the police searched her home on Nov. 16 and seized her computers and bondage furniture, since the search warrant remained sealed.

Now the seal has expired, and the warrant is very clear: it states that the "promotion of prostitution" constitutes the bulk of the charges Silva could face.

Silva, 33, operates an S&M website, EmpressM.net, that offers bondage photos and videos that she argues she has the legal right to distribute. But the warrant barely mentions the videos; rather, it is Silva's other business as a dominatrix who invites customers to visit -- and pay hundreds of dollars for services -- that drew attention from police.

The investigation was prompted by an anonymous e-mail police received in January. "I thought you would like to know that you have an S&M prostitution house in your town," the e-mail said, according to the warrant. When Enfield Det. William Cooper looked at Silva's website, he found pictures of "'EmpressM' with nude males, 'slaves' in obvious states of sexual arousal," the warrant said. S&M practitioners, or sadomasochists, derive sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on others or themselves.

"It is clear that B&D (bondage and discipline) practitioners can receive sexual gratification for a fee as a fully developed rate structure exists," Cooper wrote in the warrant.

When told last week by the Advocate about the potential prostitution charges, Silva responded with a puzzled e-mail. "So who were they looking for? And still no charges É", she wrote. "Did they make this up? I need to call my attorney."

In earlier postings on an online forum for people who run pornographic websites, she appeared unaware that she might be charged with providing sex for money. "No one was charged with prostitution nor was it ever referred to by the cops, that is not why they raided my home business," she wrote after the raid.

The search and seizure of Silva's property prompted a vigorous discussion on the forum, called "Greenguy and Jim's Ultimate Adult Webmaster Board." When the warrant was still sealed, other posters on the forum looked at some of Silva's websites, which included EmpressM.net, Northeastgoddess.com, and Fortressofpain.com. The web posters read descriptions of the services she provided at rates ranging from $300 per session to $1,000 for an overnight stay, and came to a similar conclusions as the one that police may have come to.

"Gonna be hard to fight the prostition (sic) rap when you accept donations or tips for sexual services, whether it involves intercourse or not," one poster wrote.

The questions of what constitutes prostitution and sex could end up determining Silva's fate. State law defines prostitution as engaging in "sexual conduct with another person in exchange for a fee." But the phrase "sexual conduct" is pretty vague, said Todd Fernow, a law professor and director of the Criminal Law Clinic at the University of Connecticut.

Fernow said a Connecticut judge tried to define sexual conduct in a 1980 case involving an alleged prostitute charged with soliciting a New Haven police officer. The defendant claimed the phrase was unconstitutionally vague, an argument the judge rejected. But borrowing from Webster's Second New World Dictionary, the judge defined sexual conduct as involving "sex, the sexes, the organs of sex and their functions, or the instincts, drives, behavior, etc. associated with sex." That's still pretty vague, and it's the dictionary, not the law.

State laws defining abuse, assault and other sexual crimes are much more graphically descriptive. One section of the criminal code states, "'Sexual intercourse' means vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, fellatio or cunnilingus between persons regardless of sex. É Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse or fellatio and does not require emission of semen. Penetration may be committed by an object manipulated by the actor into the genital or anal opening of the victim's body."

Again, that definition of sex applies to assaults, not to prostitution. Indeed, the criminal code also offers a definition of sadomasochistic abuse: "flagellation or torture by or upon a person clad in undergarments, a mask or bizarre costume, or the condition of being fettered, bound or otherwise physically restrained on the part of one so clothed."

But consensual sadomasochism isn't mentioned in the law, and is apparently legal. It's certainly practiced widely in Connecticut, by amateurs and by professionals who charge for their services. Whether it is considered "sex" or not still remains a matter of opinion.

The relationship between consensual sadomasochism, often called BDSM, and sex is a vexed one. In an article on BDSM published in the Hartford Advocate earlier this year, some practitioners were at pains to explain that at its core, flogging, binding, wax play, role-playing, humiliation, and the whole range of BDSM activities are intended to create intimate connections between the participants, and not necessarily sexual ones ("Slaves and Masters," July 21). At the same time, they admitted that BDSM sometimes involved sex.

"I have an opinion that's not popular among a lot of BDSMers," Dr. Gloria Brame said in an interview last week. Brame, an Athens, Georgia, clinical sexologist, is an S&M advocate and author of the book A Different Kind of Loving . "I say it's sex, and the hell with it. I say nobody is going to pay to go somewhere if they're not going to get turned on. They're paying to get turned on."

Brame said in an ideal world, consenting adults could have sex or perform BDSM or engage in whatever combination they like, without having to worry about police raids. But she also said that someone who has a business like Silva's has to be aware that things get tricky when the clothes come off, and it's smart to check everything with your lawyer, well before the cops come knocking.


We want your feedback.
Email mrinde@hartfordadvocate.com
Email editor@hartfordadvocate.com

@}-}rebecca---- said:

The web posters read descriptions of the services she provided at rates ranging from $300 per session to $1,000 for an overnight stay, and came to a similar conclusions as the one that police may have come to.

Click to expand...

]*raises eyebrows*

*momentarily wishes she had Netzach's job*

*realizes there has only ever been one person on whom she might have been able to inflict physical pain, and he's dead now*

*sighs*

Oh, bother. Nevermind.

That was an interesting and very relevant article, Rebecca. Thanks for posting it.

Alice

The Mistress Regrets Dec 29 - Jan 4 , 2006

Control Tower & Kink Calendar
The Mistress Regrets

BY MISTRESS MATISSE

Looking back over the last year, I have no major regrets—but I do have some small ones. For example, the last time I was interviewed by SexLife LIVE host Dane Ballard, he informed me that his genital PSI was such that when his dick was hard, someone could slam it in a car door and his erotic enthusiasm would remain undiminished.

I truly regret not getting out my calendar right then and there and making a date with him to road-test his belief. I mean, what kind of car door are we talking about here, Dane? A ragtop Jeep, with those flimsy little doors? Or one of the old two-door Cadillacs, where each door is about four feet long and weighs a ton? I think we'd have to do some controlled experiments to really say for sure. But the whole exercise sounds win-win to me, and I should have seized the opportunity while the cameras were rolling.

Genital-impact play aside, I have a few regrets about things I've said in this column. For one thing, I attempted to debunk several deeply beloved myths of the kink world, and I am still getting hate mail about it.

Perhaps the most fervently disputed notion came up in the March 3 issue, in which I said the idea that a dominant could teach a female submissive to instantly orgasm on command, without any direct physical stimulation whatsoever, was fallacious. I pointed out that there are distinct physiological phases of female sexual arousal, and you can't just skip them. I had one female physician who specialized in treating anorgasmic women write me and say thank you. The rest of the mail: Pissy heterosexual male dominants telling me I knew nothing about women's orgasms. Wow, I had no idea how much my suggestion that female submissives might possibly be faking those instantaneous orgasms would upset certain male dominants. If I had, I'd have written about it much sooner.

Other sexual-iconoclast moments: June 30, the "Gigolo Matrix" column. The e-mails I got about this column seemed written more in sorrow than in anger, but I did hear from some would-be gigolos who felt that by expressing my opinion that women very rarely pay men for sex, I was dampening the market for their manly wares. Yeah, right—because I've trained all the women who would otherwise be paying them for sex not to orgasm at my command.

Then there was the August 25 column about the inherent danger of erotic breath control. Dear readers, please believe me—no matter how lyrically you describe to me the beauty of your oxygen-deprived orgasms, I still don't think they're worth risking death for.

The October 13 column, "The A-Word," proved a mixed blessing. By listing some of the more extreme kink behaviors in an attempt to dissuade people from saying they'll "do anything," I think I frightened some of you. Upside: Some of my ever-helpful pals sent me still more suggestions for scary possibilities with which to threaten the unwary. (Bees? Super Glue? Jumper cables? You people are just wrong, I tell you. And I love you for it.)

I guess I can't say I regret those columns, since I still think I'm correct. The one set of columns I do truly regret are the phone-calls columns. Yes, I know, everyone loves reading about my conversations with the silly weirdoes who call me up. And I liked doing them, because with the odd phone calls I get, good lord, those columns practically wrote themselves. So everyone was happy, except my potential clients, who apparently weren't clear on what kinds of phone calls would—or would not—land them in print. Guys, calling me up to ask me if I do, say, cross-dressing, is just fine. Calling me up to ask me if I'll amputate your penis? That does have certain comedic potential. But never fear, I'm hereby swearing off writing about you, no matter how strange your questions are. I have to make sure my bottoms feel safe and respected before I do nasty things to them. How else I am going to get someone to let me slam his dick in a car door?

matisse@thestranger.com

Update ~ Another Version

Sado-Masochism Might be ‘Sexual Orientation’ says BC Human Rights Tribunal

By Hilary White

VANCOUVER, January 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The BC Human Rights Tribunal is being asked to discover a new “sexual orientation.” The Vancouver Sun reported December 30, that a self-described “pagan” is accusing the Vancouver police of discrimination for refusing him a license to drive a limousine because of his involvement in the “bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism” (BDSM) underworld.

A Vancouver man, Peter Hayes, has accused the Vancouver police of illegal discrimination because of his involvement in BDSM. Hayes says that he lost a potential job as a limousine driver when police refused him a chauffeur's permit and has taken his case to the Human Rights Tribunal.

The Tribunal’s Lindsay M. Lyster wrote an 18 page preliminary decision saying that the complaint can go forward. She said that while she did not completely understand the “precise nature of Mr. Hayes' lifestyle, practices and preferences,” they ought to be investigated as to whether they fall under the definition of sexual orientation, and therefore of the protection of human rights legislation.

Lyster wrote that she did not understand the meaning “of the parties' use of the term BDSM or other related terms.” Despite this, she believed “that Mr. Hayes suffered an adverse impact as a result of the respondents' actions is, on the facts alleged, clear, as he was denied a chauffeur's permit and lost the opportunity to work.”

The police department said, “In our submission, sexual orientation is separate and distinct from preferences or behaviours while engaging in sex. The legislature has not gone so far as to prohibit discrimination on the basis of preferences or behaviour.”

The issue of legal protection for “sexual orientation,” however, is a vexed one since when such legislation was introduced, a clear definition was deliberately withheld.

Gwen Landolt, a family advocate and head of Real Women of Canada, told LifeSiteNews.com that no definition of the term can be found in Canadian law so it can and is used to provide legal protection to any sexual proclivity.

Landolt said, “That was the whole point when the legislation began to appear. ‘Orientation’ was left open so as to include pedophilia, bestiality or anything anyone wants.”

“This has been the goal of the homosexual movement from the start: to remove from the Canadian criminal code everything pertaining to sexual morality, and their favorite method is to use the Human Rights Tribunals. These tribunals are not run according to the standards of evidence and due process as the normal courts,” Landolt said.

Lyster wrote that the Tribunal should employ the opinion of “experts” to decide if Mr. Hayes’ sexual interests could be considered an “orientation.” Given the willingness of experts to approve of most sexual activities that had heretofore been considered sick or dangerous to past generations, it seems to Landolt that one more sexual deviation is about to be given legal protection in Canada.

Landolt said, “The same thing happened in Ontario with the so-called ‘transgendered.’ They were refused OHIP coverage for their surgeries and they went to the Human Rights Tribunals. Now we have seen it with the swinger’s clubs in Montreal, and previously with child pornography. You name it.”

USA : Shoe fetish - emotional, psychological & dangerous

USA : Shoe fetish - emotional, psychological & dangerous


Shoe shopping has become a craze here and is not merely for fulfilling the need.

Today buying shoes is a hobby. It is to make oneself feel special and beautiful.

Some women like Stacey Buzay of Maplewood who claims to own around 60-70 pairs of shoes, consider thisobssesion as quiet normal.

Meanwhile, the study by The US Commerce Department supports this belief, as the footwear sales were raised 10.5 percent by November 2005.

Bill Boettge, Former President, National Shoe Retailers Association, notes that the timing of this hype should not be ignored. With the gas price hike and the war in Iraq, people tend to do more things to feel better.

A shopping spree has been the traditional way to lift ones spirits.

Amanda Nagel, the Sales and Membership Coordinator, agrees that the stress of the world around us makes women shop more often.

She also explains that whereas while buying clothes women get conscious of their figure and body, buying shoes does not involve any such complications. Buying shoes somehow relieves a woman giving immense satisfaction.

Another reason that boosts the sales is the wide range of variety in shoes, different shoes for every occasion and every dress.

The prices of the shoes have remained almost the same over the years. The industry has been very competitive.

Gail Thoen, a Psychologist and Professor at the University of Minnesota, gives a rather psychological explanation, saying that protecting the feet was a primal need. Shoes offer comfort and displays wealth.

She also warns that this shoe fetish can become as addictive as the chemical addiction.

A person is not consciously aware of the problem but the bills show them the reality.

The person with serious problem should seek help from a professional or join a support group.

____________________________________________

Footnote

Definition of Retifism

Shoe fetishism, also known as retifism, involves being irrationally or abnormally fixated on shoes or other footwear to the extent it may interfere with sexual expression. Although shoes carry sexual connotations in mainstream culture, this is not generally considered to be shoe fetishism, although it may qualify as a form of partialism.

S&M@phillynews.com

Posted on Fri, Jan. 06, 2006

S&M@phillynews.com or write: S&M c/o Daily News, Box 7788, Philadelphia, PA 19101.


Q: I have a recurring problem with women. I really enjoy women's feet and shoes. Unfortunately, when women find out about my interest, they drop me. Should I just tell a woman on the first date to save time? Are there women out there who might share my foot fetish? If so, where can I find one?

Mia: I think feet are really gross, so I don't like it when someone wants to spend too much time giving my toes special attention. But I am just one woman. There's got to be a lady out there who would appreciate a little pedi-love. Just don't spring it on her right away. Wait a couple of days and then casually tell her that you enjoy feet.

Steve: I'm guessing you can find a woman who shares your foot fetish on the Internet. Seems like you can find anything there.

Savage Love by Dan Savage The Village Voice

Savage Love
by Dan Savage


Q. My sister, with whom I'm quite close, has been getting into s/m. Recently she announced that she has acquired a slave. After much thought and discussion on the matter, I am still having a very hard time coming to terms with it. She treats him like a slave 24 hours a day. They are planning a "collaring." I'm the first person to admit that I don't understand all this. We have had conversations on the topic, but our last one ended in her hanging up on me, and we haven't spoken since.

My husband and I are complete equals in every way, and I just can't imagine how I can feel comfortable watching my sister humiliate and degrade someone by ordering him around like a slave. I sure wouldn't sit back and allow someone to treat her that way! She told our father about her new relationship when he was in town last week. We're all expected at my mom's house for the holidays; we'll be staying under the same roof. My mother is not comfortable with the situation either. I realize that I don't have much choice but to suck it up if I want to have a relationship with my sister. She compares my feelings to the way gay people were treated when they first started struggling for social acceptance. It makes me very angry that she is so impatient with me. �Sister & Mistress

A This advice may come too late, S&M, so please accept my regrets if your sister and her slave have already come and gone. But just in case everyone is staying at Mom's place through New Year's Eve�and your sister is still ordering her slave around in front of the whole family�I wanted to address your sister directly: Knock it off, Mistress Fuckwit. Asking people to accept BDSM�the pastime, the lifestyle�doesn't give you the right to force other people to take part in it. Your slave is no doubt humiliated when you treat him like shit in front of others, and doubtless this humiliation turns him on. BDSM subs are like that. So, MF, when you humiliate him in front of your family members, you're forcing them to play an active role in your sex life. That's not asking for tolerance, that's demanding participation. And that's not OK.

You brought up gays and lesbians, and our struggle for acceptance. Sorry, MF, but the comparison is not apt. Not once in our struggle for social acceptance have gays and lesbians demanded the right to have sex in front of our relatives. We want to be accepted by our families, tolerated by strangers, and treated equally by our government. But people who don't want to watch us have sex aren't compelled to.

This mistress/slave stuff is, at bottom, about sex. Yeah, yeah: It can be sooooooooo much more than that, some 24-7 BDSM folks insist. Some people feel dominant or submissive deep down in their kinky souls, and they build their lives around those roles. I get it. And, dare I say it, some of my best friends are 24-7 BDSMers. But BDSM isn't ultimately who you are, it's what you enjoy in bed�or in the dungeon, the playroom, the fetish club, etc. Here's a rough rule of thumb: If you're talking about something that gay, straight, and bisexual people can all do� fisting, snowballing, BDSM�then it's a sex act, not a sexual identity. However many times you collar your slave, however many slave contracts he signs, however many nights he sleeps in a cage, it's still a sex act, and forcing your family to watch you treat him like your slave compels them to participate in your sex life. And again, that's not OK.

Sensible BDSMers�and, yes, I include 24-7 BDSMers in that group�keep the heavy stuff behind closed doors and keep it subtle when they're out in public or with their families. That's not oppression, Mistress Fuckwit, that's common courtesy.

Hostel' — Now here's something for some good, sick fun

'Hostel' — Now here's something for some good, sick fun
By Bob Strauss, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
Monday, Jan 09, 2006

I ALWAYS thought it was weird that they called those flophouses for young backpackers hostels. The word just doesn't have a welcoming ring, does it?

Horrormeister Eli Roth ("Cabin Fever") evidently feels the same way. His latest release, called "Hostel," starts off as the best dang Eurotrip two American guys, and their new buddy from Iceland, could ever dream of, then turns into a freaking nightmare of sadism, murder and revenge. Which is too bad for them, but pretty satisfyingly done for those who like to just groove on decadence and mayhem in the safety of a good ol' USA multiplex.

Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh ("Dumb and Dumberer's" Derek Richardson) are two pals who have almost been having the time of their lives knocking around Western Europe. The reason it's almost is because, unlike the wackazoid Nordic giant Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) they've hooked up with, our red-blooded lads aren't nailing as many continental hotties as they'd like to.

So a creepy guy in Amsterdam tells them about an extra-special hostel in remote Slovakia, where the women are all gorgeous and melt at the sound of American accents. The trio heads east and, voila, it's all true. They're assigned a room shared by the drop-dead gorgeous and usually naked Natalya (Barbara Nedeljakova) and Svetlana (Jana Kaderabkova), who make the Yanks' night.

But when Oli turns up missing the morning after, it's just the start of a sinister series of events. The town, it appears, supports a much more lucrative kind of tourist attraction. One that involves dungeons, surgical instruments and, if you want to bother to lend some kind of sociopolitical metaphor to the disgusting carnage, impoverished, post-communist Eastern Europe's payback to the smug, comfortable West.

But really, when "Hostel" isn't about exposing Slavic flesh, it's all about rending parts from bodies in the most painful manner imaginable. But Roth differs from a lot of contemporary torment-horror filmmakers in that he has a knack for persuasive storytelling and knows how to film gross-out porn suspensefully, not just grotesquely.

Quentin Tarantino was an executive producer of "Hostel," and some of the film's earlier abuses employ the expert, don't-really-show-it aesthetic of the ear amputation scene in "Reservoir Dogs." But Roth is not one to hold back the, um, goods for long. By the time the chain saw and blowtorch get broken out, you could not ask for more graphic defilement. Nor would you want to.

But it all adds up to superior sick entertainment. And that's only enhanced by the late arrival of the ingeniously irritating Rick Hoffman ("Cellular," TV's "Jake in Progress") as the ultimate ugly American tourist.

Is It a Choice?

Is It a Choice?
Answers to the Most
Frequently Asked Questions
About Gay and Lesbian People

Quick Takes on Queer Book

by Elizabeth A. Allen

Do you wish that you had a witty comeback for that relative who asked you over holiday dinner, "So... how long is this 'gay phase' supposed to last?" Are your siblings still bringing up questions about your sexuality that you thought you had explained several years ago? Or are you yourself looking for a collection of lgbtq resources just for your own information and peace of mind?
In that case, it'’s a good thing that Eric Marcus's 1993 classic, Is It a Choice? Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Gay and Lesbian People, has come out (pun intended) again, heavily revised and with a new introduction. Over 12 years, two previous editions, 75,000 copies and multiple languages, Is It a Choice? has acted as a primer for queers, their allies and anyone who has ever wondered about glbtq people. Now updated to contain information about gay marriage, religion and gay people, and the most recent advocacy and information groups, Marcus' book is ready to educate a new generation.
Marcus notes in his introduction that he's "chosen to stick pretty much to the broad middle of lesbian and gay life." So, if you're trying to explain transgendered identities or BDSM culture to others, you'll want to look elsewhere in books that specifically address those topics. What you've got here is a basic guide to such inquiries as "What is a homosexual?," "What do gay people do on a date?" and, of course, the burning question of the decade: "Do all lesbians own Subarus?" (The answer to the last one is a resounding no. I came out about eight years ago, and I still haven't received my congratulatory car.)
On topics like coming out, parents of gay kids, religion and more, Marcus provides simple, factual answers. For example, about gay dating, he writes, "What gay people do on a date varies as much as what heterosexual people do on dates." Emphasizing the common humanity of all people no matter what their sexuality, Marcus models a calm, accepting attitude that may be especially helpful to, say, anxious parents or close friends. Even on subjects as touchy as queer sexuality and faith – "The only thing that many religions agree on about homosexuality is that they don't agree" – Marcus keeps a cool head, presenting information in an orderly manner and leavening it with welcome humor. His all-around patience and reasonable tone make Is It a Choice? accessible and informative. While the 2005 gift-giving season is over, I still recommend stocking up on a few copies of this book and handing them out when necessary to combat confusion and ignorance.

Sick: The Life And Death Of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist

SICK: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST (DVD)

by Brad Cook
(2005-12-31)
1997, Rated R, 89 minutes, Lions Gate


I appreciate any movie that offers a view of the world I’ve never considered before. While I found "Sick" a difficult film to watch—not only because of the squirm-in-your-seat things Bob Flanagan does to himself but also because it’s simply awful to watch someone die painfully from a terrible disease—I found it an enlightening experience that explains what cystic fibrosis as well as why someone wracked with pain from it might want to hurt themselves. And if you’re a fan of this documentary from its days on the festival circuit, you will enjoy the copious extras on this DVD release; more on that in a moment.

As the title says, "Sick" tells the story of Bob Flanagan, who was not only a super masochist but also a very funny guy who brought his slightly off-balance view of the world to a wide variety of intriguing performance art pieces. Sheree Rose, his long-time companion (I assume they never married, although the film never addresses that question directly), assisted him with many of his performances and provided the dominant personality that he, as a submissive, needed. She’s also a complex character in the film, someone who cared about Flanagan deeply but also exhibited selfish moments that make you wonder how she could act like that.

Director Kirby Dick eschewed narration when he made this documentary, instead providing us with an unfiltered look at Flanagan through his own words and actions, which was a smart choice. Dick offers the usual interviews with family members as well as the obligatory home video footage from childhood, but everything serves to show us who Flanagan was and what made him that way, which is crucial here. I’ve never understood the appeal of S&M, but watching "Sick" made me understand how Flanagan used it to manage his devastating illness. And observations such as “Jesus was the original masochist” and “Circumcision is an early penis pain that many men endure” made me realize how pervasive the infliction of pain is in our culture and how S&M really isn’t that far removed from things that many of us take for granted.

"Sick" received a lot of attention because of the things Flanagan does to himself in the film—including, yes, nailing his penis to a board—but the reality is that this is a very warm film that’s often funny and touching. Dick treats his subject with much compassion and shows us Flanagan the human being, not just Flanagan the masochist or Flanagan the performance artist or Flanagan the guy who has lived longer with cystic fibrosis than doctors ever thought he would.

Lions Gate’s release of this film on DVD also includes production commentary by Kirby Dick and co-editor Dody Dorn, eight deleted scenes, a brief interview with Dick, four of Flanagan’s performance art pieces presented unedited, a DVD-ROM game, and “Sarah’s Sick Too.” The last one is essentially a mini-documentary that catches up with Sarah, another cystic fibrosis sufferer who met Flanagan through the Make a Wish Foundation at the age of 17 (as shown in the film) and who is now 26 and still living with the disease. She’s not into S&M, but Flanagan’s example was clearly a major inspiration for her, and this short video also clears up her reason behind giving him a riding crop, something left dangling in the documentary.

The rest of the extras add a lot of depth to what is already a deep documentary, despite its slight 89-minute running time. Dick’s views in both the commentary and the interview, as well as his introductions to the deleted scenes and performance art pieces, add insight that any fan of the film will find fascinating. I thought some of the deleted scenes should have been included in the film (and even Dick seems to be on the fence about whether or not he really should have cut the “Toy Box” one), but all of them stand on their own as worthy supplements to the story; the one where Flanagan answers non-existent questions is very funny. Those who enjoyed the soundtrack will be happy to hear that you can listen to selections from it in a special feature that’s not listed on the DVD case.

And if anyone out there has had any success with the DVD-ROM game, please let me know what your secret is. I guess I’m hapless when it comes to S&M, because I never managed to “get Bob off,” as the instructions say. If you can make it to round three in the game, you’ll learn about a secret hidden on the disc, but I have no idea what it is since I couldn’t get past round one.

In closing, "Sick" is a must-have for fans of the film. Those who are curious about it will find it a worthwhile rental packed with so much stuff that they may not finish it all before returning it. That’s where Netflix comes in handy.

A weekend among suburban cannibals

Eat Me!
A weekend among suburban cannibals
by Katharine Gates

It's just before Thanksgiving and instead of roasting turkey with my family I'm in a whitebread suburb of Los Angeles, watching a woman being prepared as the main course of a feast. First, two female chefs strip the woman naked. They pull her arms back tightly and place her face-down on an oversize platter. They spread her legs wide, exposing her bald pussy, and use thick ropes to bind her ankles and wrists together at her thighs. They pour oil and honey over the woman until she glistens. They thrust a corncob into her vagina, shove a red apple into her mouth, and maneuver the platter into a large fake oven. After a while, the chefs remove the roast from the heat and poke a gigantic meat thermometer into her ass. The needle on the dial points to well-done pork. Dinner is served!

Cannibalism has existed around the globe and throughout history, but perhaps only in the 21st century has it become an erotic lifestyle. For tribal peoples, ritual anthropophagy was a way for the living to incorporate the powers of the dead. Christians symbolically consume the flesh and blood of Jesus as a means to experience communion with their God. But in 2001, a German computer programmer named Armin Meiwes killed, butchered, and ate a man he met in an online chat room for cannibal "fetishists." Meiwes's victim gave his videotaped consent to the procedure, even requesting his own penis as a last meal. Since the arrangement was consensual, the German judge sentenced Meiwes to only eight and a half years in prison.

For every Armin Meiwes there are probably thousands of self-described cannibal fetishists who never intend to kill or be killed�they only want to consume erotic stories, photographs, and videos showing humans as meat. Muki's Kitchen (mukiskitchen.com), the commercial porn site where I saw the human suckling pig, claims to sell hundreds of its photo portfolios a month (although thousands of visitors a day download the free previews). Gurgurant, a computer programmer who has been seeking "woman-eaters" like himself since the Internet's beginning, tells me that for every person who actually buys cannibal porn, there are hundreds of others who post on dozens of cannibal chat rooms and message boards. Any estimate of cannibal numbers would have to include "femcans" (men who want to be eaten by women), queers of all colors and tastes, and those who have yet to get online. Judging from my weekend visit, erotic cannibals are ordinary bourgeois kinksters. They might view cannibal porn and have vanilla sex, they might role-play online, or they might even oil up their wives in the privacy of their bedrooms, but they would never consider acting on their fantasies in anything but a safe, sane, and consensual manner.

Since opening in 1999, Muki's Kitchen has produced 62 photo portfolios, all serving up the same goofy plotline: A woman is captured, stripped, trussed, stuffed, and "cooked." Mr. Muki, himself a woman-eater, is the Kitchen's sole photographer, set builder, and webmaster. (Mr. Muki is his professional pseudonym: He leads an unassuming life supported partially by the website and partially by his wife, a corporate executive. Anonymity was a condition to the agreement that allowed this reporter access to a misunderstood scene.) "Every cannibal has a favorite recipe," he says. The most popular is the spit roast, a woman skewered through the vagina and out the mouth�a visual effect achieved through the use of cardboard tubes painted to resemble metal. There's also the face-down suckling pig, the parturition-style turkey girl, and finally the old cartoon-gag clich�, the jungle cannibal stew pot. These sometimes dorky pictures are actually more about food preparation than cannibalism: There's never any carving or eating.

"The reality of cannibalism would never live up to the fantasy," says Mr. Muki, smoking a postprandial pipe in the small courtyard outside of the studio. He's 45, with a short beard, nerdy glasses, a gray mullet. "If you really were going to eat somebody you'd have to behead them. You'd have to clean them out," he explains. "You'd have to skin them because humans have sweat glands�they're not like chickens! But sex is all about skin!" He continues, "I think boobies are just great, but there's nothing edible in a boob. It's glands and fat. So that goes! This is getting pretty unattractive." In other words, Mr. Muki likes his meat tasteful. "I want it to be presented beautifully, like a Hollywood picture."

What made the photo shoot I witnessed unusual is that the main course was not simply another porn model from L.A.�she is a bona fide "meatgirl," a woman who wants to be eaten. Meghan Vaughan, a 31-year-old artist living in Cincinnati, flew to L.A. to act out her fantasy of being served on a platter. She's among the half-dozen or so women, by Gurgurant's count, who have come out online as meatgirls, and while Mr. Muki claims that as many as 15 percent of his customers are female, Meghan is the only one to pose for the cannibal public. To Muki's male customers she is a dream come true, that exceedingly rare woman who actually gets off on fulfilling the fantasy they've lived with all their lives.

Meghan enters the courtyard after her shower and lights up a cigarette. She has Bettie Page�style black bangs and pigtails, and she's wearing an all-black art student version of hillbilly chic. "I was chubby in high school and none of the guys wanted to look at me," she says. Neither masturbation nor sex worked for her until her twenties. She explored BDSM, but it wasn't until she saw the Muki's Kitchen website this past January that it all clicked. "Bondage, submission, gagging, humiliation, exhibitionism, objectification�it was all there!" She immediately offered to star in a Muki portfolio based on her hillbilly cannibal comic book, Little Red Roundbottom. Since her first shoot in August, Meghan has become something of a cann-fetish celebrity, and the photo shoots promote sales of her art on the CannToon website. "For me, it's all about being the centerpiece, the center of attention," she says. "It's the same attention you give the turkey on Thanksgiving. Everybody is just obsessed with that turkey. Ooooooh, the turkey the turkey the turkey. When is the turkey going to be done? It's so exciting!"

While Mr. and Mrs. Muki's home sex life involves simple light bondage and lots of oral sex ("Cannibals give good head!" says Mr. Muki), Meghan's meatgirl lifestyle is a more elaborate affair. She tells me that her home dungeon�a small room in her house where she, her partner, and friends play�now has a homemade rotisserie and an electric fireplace that crackles realistically. "When I get home, I'll ask my partner to hog-tie me the same way we did in the shoot, because it will be the hottest position for a while," she says. "When I'm trussed up like that, I like to have a lot of ass play. I even squeal like a pig!" However, Meghan never is really dead in her fantasies. "It's like being drugged yet still aware," she says. "Like when your body is paralyzed but your mind is still awake. I like to think I'm inanimate, without a conscience. There's a feeling of transcendence when I'm being transformed."

Even though individual photos in the Muki's Kitchen portfolios can come across as scary, cruel, or demeaning, the models are obviously alive and even happy. "I want my customers not to feel like freaks to have these fantasies," Mr. Muki says, "and humor is what keeps it feeling fun and sane." Too much humor, though, breaks the tension . . .and arousal is all about keeping up the tension. To help both male and female customers feel comfortable, Mr. Muki also pretends that the Kitchen is a mom-and-pop operation, although Mrs. Muki's only real task is to keep an eye on the tone of the website. Mr. Muki's own fantasies might occasionally involve beheading and dismemberment, but that will never get into the images. Instead, he gets the necessary jolt from props that inspire visceral, vicarious responses. "For me, the money shot is the close-up of the thermometer in the butt with the needle registering on 'pork.' "

That evening the Mukis, Meghan, and I drive to Bahooka, a historic tiki-themed restaurant in Rosemead, a neighborhood in eastern Los Angeles, to meet a few more cannibals: Gurgurant, a collector of jungle cannibal gag cartoons and lifelong fan of the stew-pot girl fantasy; Canntoon, an ambitious twentysomething promoting his own cannibal website; and Andy, a TV producer so terrified of being identified that he avoided me completely. Most of these people have never met each other in person before, and it takes several rounds of Zombies to bring the conversation around to their favorite topic. They laugh about the anti-meat ads produced by PETA�photos of naked female models shrink-wrapped into huge supermarket meat trays. Gurgurant asks, "Do they know how much those turn us on?"

My dining companions�all incredibly ordinary�share a preference for the gentler side of cannibalism. "Some cannibals complain that Muki's is too 'Muki-esque,' " Mr. Muki says. "They mean this fluffy, soft, fantasy cannibalism without any of the messy stuff, the blood and the guts. So be it!" Muki's may be losing business to websites like Necrobabes and Rue Morgue, which emphasize death and torture rather than Muki's sex and aesthetics. (It's a belief in the porn world that the way to avoid prosecution is to choose between sex and violence�Muki's chose sex, the others chose violence.) Unlike Muki's, these sites have no penetration and no "pink," and the cinema v�rit� style suggests documentary rather than fantasy. The main difference between Necrobabes and a slasher flick is that the movies have better effects. While Mr. Muki makes only what he himself wants to see, Necrobabes does market research and produces what will sell. When I tell Mr. Muki that Peter Cohen, co-owner of necrobabes.com, necrobabes.org, and 10 other fetish sites, claims to have 6,000 members, half of whom return month after month to pay $40, he is dumbfounded. Violence sells better than sex.

Clearly, both Muki's and Necrobabes are trying to present an image they feel will bring the most customers; Muki's wants everything to seem safe, while the others play up the freakish and the extreme. It comes as no surprise then that while other sites tease that "it's more real than you think," the Mukis insist that rumors of genuine cannibalism are invoked to ramp up sexually desirable anxiety. Gurgurant argues that almost every person who claims to want to go through with it is just a poseur. "When you troll these boards there will always be somebody who will say, 'I'm looking to do this for real,' " he says. "Most of the community just ignores them." They're enjoying the pretense, but�like the men Meiwes let go in earlier encounters�they run when the butcher knife comes out.

The Meiwes case forced play canni-bals to reconsider their assumptions. "We all wondered, 'Gee, was he one of the ones we just ignored?' " says Gurgurant. Now, any post on Muki's message boards not clearly using the language of fantasy is deleted. Mr. Muki condemns Meiwes: "I think Meiwes got off too lightly. The very fact that his victim consented to being killed is proof that he was not mentally capable of consenting to anything!" Meghan is more empathetic: "If that's what they want to do with their bodies and with their lives, why shouldn't they?" Nevertheless, she would never think of offering herself up as an actual meal. "Then I wouldn't be able to do it over again, would I?"

Perhaps what is most shocking of all is that my new acquaintances' erotic inspiration does not come from slasher films�as one might expect in a culture where sex is routinely paired with vio-lence�but rather from the consumer trappings of domestic bliss. For Meghan, Williams-Sonoma catalogs can inspire masturbatory fantasies of being skewered on the latest Cuisinart rotisserie. She looks to Bed Bath & Beyond, and Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill on the Food Network, for sex play ideas. She says, "Someday I'd like to be photographed for Better Homes and Gardens as this beautiful spread on a festive holiday table."

Katharine Gates is the author of Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex (Juno Books).




..

Control Tower by Mistress Matisse

Control Tower
Mistress May I?

BY MISTRESS MATISSE

Dear Madame Matisse,

My dear Mistress sometimes stops in the middle of a scene because she's not sure if she's caning me too hard. How can I encourage her to press on, regardless of my squeals?

BDSM players often use "yellow" and "red" to mean "slow down" or "stop", but you can also establish a "green" word to mean "keep it up, baby, I'm loving it." You can make it something all submissive-sounding, if you want to preserve the mood—"Ow! Thank you for the gift of your discipline, Mistress!" Or you can be like one of my partners, who enjoys encouraging me by saying things like, "Oh, what's the matter, Mistress Wimpy, am I wearing you out already? I've had mosquito bites that hurt worse than this—what are you using, a feather duster?" If your mistress is anything like me, she'll instantly lay into you like one of Singapore's finest and keep it going until her shoulder is sore.

Mistress of All Things Kinky,

I've heard there's a code kinky people use with things hanging off their belts? What's up with that? Am I sending some unintentional message with my nerd-gear hang-downs?

Vanilla engineers everywhere can rest easy. What you're referring to is the hanky code, which was invented by gay men, and borrowed by the pansexual SM community. It's designed to subtly signal sexual availability and specific interests to others in public places. It's all about facilitating anonymous hookups in bars and restrooms and parks and so on. Tucking a hanky into your left back pocket means you're the dominant party in your fetish of choice, while wearing yyour hanky on the right indicates that you're the bottom. (By "hanky" we mean colored bandanas, by the way.)

There are web pages that list the different hanky colors and their meanings. However, some of the lists take the concept to a point of absurdity, listing upwards of 40 different fetishes and their subtly different shade of hankies. Can someone please tell me how I would know the difference between a hanky that's tan (cigar fetishist) and one that's beige (rimming)?

But there are some more common and easily recognizable ones. Black is for heavy SM, gray is for bondage, red is for fisting, yellow for piss-play. A variation of the hanky code is clipping your keys to your belt either on the left or on the right.

Now that I think about it, I'm sure some clever person has probably thought up a post-millennium sex code that does involve geek high-tech gadgets like iPods and cell phones and BlackBerries. You know, cell phone on the left means you want phone sex, cell phone on the right means you give good phone, like that. The colors of the hanky code could be transferred to the colors of iPod cases. Strap it to either your left arm or your right, and you're in business. I should Google it and see.

But the whole culture of sending sexual signals in public ways is less active than it used to be, now that people use the internet for finding specific-agenda sex with strangers. So I'd say you need not fear being leapt upon by a kinkster who's mistaken your snot rag for something more perverse. No one I know would hang their hat on seeing a particular color of hanky peeking out of the pocket of someone's Levi's in an otherwise vanilla setting, although it might provoke a closer look, and perhaps some leading questions.

Dear Mistress Matisse,

What in the world is "adult-baby play"?

Wearing diapers, mainly. June Allyson had no idea how kinky she was being with those Depends commercials she did in the '90s. Plus baby powder, pacifiers, bottles, and lots of cooing baby talk. Perhaps the doting mammas of adult-baby fanciers play them classical music and foreign-language tapes during the scenes, I don't know. No real children are involved, it's all pretend. So it's a gentle, harmless fetish, if one that's always struck me as rather boring. I've been approached to play by fans of infantilism, but when I mention giving the scene an edge by doing a SIDS role-play, they always decline. Pity.

Update ~ Another Version

January 10, 2006
Tribunal to review bondage rights case
By TERRI THEODORE - Canadian Press

VANCOUVER (CP) - A British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal says a full hearing should be held into a complaint from a pagan who practices a form of sadism and masochism after he was denied a chauffeur's permit by the city's police department.

The complaint on the basis of religion and sexual orientation was filed against the Vancouver Police Department and one of its officers, Kevin Barker, who refused to give Peter Hayes the permit. Tribunal member Lindsay Lyster ruled that complaints like Hayes' should be tested under the Human Rights Code.

"To take a more restrictive approach would have the effect of denying those complainants whose complaints may push at the borders of the code," she wrote in her recently released ruling.

In tribunal documents, Hayes complained that the officer refused the permit because he posed an "extreme risk of recruiting passengers-customers into my cult during my work hours."

Hayes filed materials with the tribunal alleging that in May 2005, Barker told him that he was a member of a "sex cult" and that his sexual leanings towards a master-slave relationship were the primary reasons for denying the permit.

The lawyer who represented the Vancouver Police Department in the preliminary stage of the hearing was unavailable for comment.

Hayes is a pagan and practices a so-called BDSM lifestyle. BDSM refers to bondage and discipline, domination and submission and sadism and masochism.

"Given the gate-keeping nature of the function in which the tribunal is engaged, I consider it especially appropriate to take a liberal and purposive approach," Lyster wrote.

She said it was clear that Hayes suffered an adverse impact because he was denied the chauffeur's permit and lost the opportunity to work.

"On the facts alleged, it appears that it would be artificial and perhaps impossible to separate the religious and sexual orientation parts of Mr. Hayes' complaint," she ruled.

Lyster also strongly encouraged Hayes to get a lawyer as the case moves into the tribunal stage because of the legal complexity of the case.

Retrial in cannibalism case ~ January 11. 2006

Retrial in cannibalism case
BY DAVID CROSSLAND
SPECIAL TO NEWSDAY

January 11, 2006

BERLIN -- A self-confessed cannibal who killed and ate a willing victim faces a retrial tomorrow after German courts deemed his original, 8 1/2-year sentence to be too lenient.

Armin Meiwes, 44, made world headlines at his first trial in late 2003 because of the bizarre nature of the case, which presented the German legal system with an unprecedented dilemma: Does killing a man who wants to be eaten constitute murder?

The Federal Criminal Court overturned his original manslaughter conviction and ordered a retrial on murder charges, and legal experts say the case could go as high as Germany's Supreme Court.

Meiwes, a computer repairman who said he had been obsessed with cannibalism since puberty, said he met Berlin computer engineer Bernd-Juergen Brandes via the Internet when he was seeking someone to kill and eat, and Brandes volunteered. In March 2001, Meiwes invited Brandes to his home in Rotenburg, central Germany, stabbed him, cut up his body on a butcher's bench and captured it all on video.

The gory details shocked and fascinated the public and highlighted what experts said was extreme, Internet-fueled sadomasochism. Police estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people in Germany alone use Internet chat rooms to share fantasies about eating a person or being eaten.

Psychiatrists at his first trial described Meiwes as sane but deeply disturbed. Meiwes told the court he had fantasized about consuming a man to fill the void caused by the sudden departure of his father. He had been in touch with hundreds of people on the Internet, where he posted ads seeking fit men, and had built a "slaughter room" in the sprawling, half-timber-style house left him by his late mother, whom he described as domineering.

Britain's Sunday Times quoted Meiwes this week as saying: "I understand and regret deeply what I did but the victim wanted me to do it. Otherwise, I would never have touched him."

Meiwes said he ate 44 pounds of his victim's remains in the months after he killed him, defrosting pieces portion by portion. He kept the skull in his freezer and buried other parts in his garden. And he continued to advertise for other victims. In December 2002, an Austrian student reported him to the police and he was arrested.

"This is unique, even compared with all other cases of cannibalism," said Arthur Kreuzer, a professor at the Institute for Criminology at Giessen University. "The defendant left it totally open to the victim whether he wanted to be killed. ... You can only explain it with the technology of the Internet that two reciprocally perverted people - the one a sadist and the other a masochist - meet, agree [on] everything down to the last detail and then do everything with the condition that the victim can say no at any time."

Kreuzer said the decision to overturn the verdict and order a retrial may have been influenced by the public's moral outrage.

Doris Moeller-Scheu, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office in Frankfurt, where the new trial is to take place, said the fact that Brandes agreed to be killed does not prevent a murder conviction. Meiwes "couldn't have been convicted at all if one had argued that the victim agreed to be killed," she said. "What we're saying is that you can't agree to such a thing."

A murder conviction would carry a life sentence, which in Germany - which has no death penalty - means 15 years or more. The court also could decide to confirm the manslaughter conviction and increase the sentence to up to 15 years.

Meiwes, described as articulate, polite and of above-average intelligence, has been working in the prison library in the central city of Kassel and is popular with fellow inmates, according to media reports. People who have met him describe him as strikingly normal.

His lawyer, Harald Ermel, has said he would happily allow Meiwes to look after his children.

After his initial trial brought worldwide attention, Meiwes rejected cash offers from film and book agents and instead assigned the global rights to his story to Hamburg, Germany-based publisher Stampfwerk for no charge on condition it gives an accurate account. He is writing his memoirs, which Stampfwerk plans to publish this fall.

Meanwhile, Ermel has taken legal action in U.S. and German courts to prevent the release of a movie by the California-based company Atlantic Streamline, saying it is based so closely on the case that it may prejudice the retrial. "Butterfly, a Grimm Love Story," stars Thomas Kretschmann, who played the ship's captain in "King Kong," and Keri Russell.

Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend explores the power of brotherly bondage

Bonding time
Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend explores the power of brotherly bondage

By GREG MARZULLO
Friday, January 13, 2006

NOW AND THEN a lot of people get tied up. No, not at work or in traffic. People are tied to bed posts, each other or, sometimes, anything that’s nailed down. People get handcuffed, knotted up with ties and placed in restraints. For those leather fans out there, getting bound takes on all kinds of meanings and involves all sorts of props.

This year’s theme for the Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend, “Bound in Brotherhood,” encompasses meanings from kinky to spiritual. From Friday, Jan. 13, through Sunday, Jan. 15, when the country’s second largest leather convention takes over Washington, D.C., leather aficionados, admirers and the curious can delve into the practice of bondage.

Leather folk will descend on the Washington Plaza hotel for the weekend, transforming the lobby into a de facto gay bar. The famed Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather competition, the highlight of the weekend, takes place Sunday afternoon.

Frank Nowicki, 49, won the title in 1993, and he’s been emceeing the event for more than 10 years. According to this leather veteran, this year’s theme is about much more than tying up your significant other.

“It’s about camaraderie, the friendships, the different components of the leather community,” he says. “[The weekend] is to touch base with each other and reaffirm our feelings about leather.”

Each year’s topic is chosen by an organizing committee, and themes have ranged from men in uniform to a leather spoof of HBO’s “Sex and the City.”

“We want to emphasize the importance of leather and motorcycle clubs in the leather community,” says Larry Barat, 45, co-chair of the weekend party and the current vice president of the Centaur Motorcycle club, which stages the event. “That notion of brotherhood is linked very strongly to the idea of how leather clubs work together.”

The event’s website and postcard image reflects the community’s thematic ideals. A group of men in leather vests, emblazoned with the various leather clubs’ images, are being lassoed together by a cowhide-clad stud. The picture is a representation of the D.C. area’s leather organizations’ ability to come together despite their different identities.

“We have lots of labels within the leather community, but we seem to all get along fairly well,” says Mike Dembski, the event’s publicity chair.

While the title of the weekend might seem to exclude women, Schelli Dittman, manager of the D.C. Eagle, says that “brotherhood” transcends gender.

“I’m a member of the [local leather club] Highwaymen, which is a brotherhood fraternity, but we have women members,” Dittman says. “We use ‘brotherhood’ meaning a bond.”

SOME MAY THINK the party line about the weekend’s call for unity and a gathering of the tribes might be a hollow cover for a weekend of Bacchanalian pleasures. While bondage seems to be a fairly common practice in the leather community, many people view the experience as deeply spiritual, and there are other leather devotees who aren’t interested at all.

“[Bondage] ranges from people who just like to wear leather and are quite vanilla in bed to serious SM [sado-masochism] players,” says Barat. “With some people, this is very spiritual for them. There are others that it’s more about power exchange.”

Bondage can take many forms, from light to heavy, with or without adding the S/M components to it.

“Bondage is immobilizing another person physically,” says Justin Sox, Colonel of D.C.’s Men of Discipline, a BDSM leather alternative club. The group dubs its leader a “colonel” even though its members — who presumably ask and tell — don’t necessarily have any military affiliation.

Bondage includes tying someone up with plain old rope and “mummification,” wrapping someone in cloth, or that handy kitchen staple, Saran Wrap. Sox has become a fan of Japanese rope bondage.

“It’s a very specific manner of tying a rope on another person,” says Sox. “[It has] sensuality as well as physical beauty.”

Sox came to the practice of BDSM through a personal study in Buddhism and its central teachings about life and the inherent nature of suffering. In a way, the Buddhist mindset of simply noticing the sensations and mental patterns of anger, misery and love became synonymous with Sox’s understanding of this particular sexual practice.

“It’s sensation, but it’s not painful,” he says. “What is the physical suffering and mental suffering in our daily lives? How can we reconcile all those things with the gay and leather community? The questions are somewhat intertwined.”

THE SEDUCTIVE INTOXICATION of control is also part of bondage’s erotic appeal.

“A lot of it has to do with the idea of being able to trust someone else enough to make yourself vulnerable,” says Barat. “At the same time, for the person who’s doing the tying, [he or she] has the responsibility of taking someone as far as they can go — but no further.”

Dittman, who’s 37 and identifies as queer, jokes about the differences in intensity between the gay male and lesbian bondage scenes.

“We scare the shit out of the men,” she laughs. “We play pretty hard and rough.” Among the leather lesbians, Dittman says, they joke that the gay man’s version of SM is “standing and modeling.”
Leather Cocktails takes place on the Saturday night of the weekend and features attendees dressed in their formal leather finest. (Photo by Mike Dempski)

WHILE THE SUBGROUPS of women, bears, BDSM folks and others tend to get along, the leather community as a whole can have a tenuous relationship with other gays. The celebratory nature of the leather culture’s sensuality and overt veneration of masculinity doesn’t always gel with the projected image of gay Tupperware-toting friends and dog-walking neighbors.

Leather-loving gays and lesbians cite their contributions to civil rights and to fighting the AIDS epidemic as proof of their having an equal place at the gay table.

“The leather community is in some ways a foundation of the gay and lesbian community,” says Barat. “If you look back 20 years ago to the time of Stonewall and the early AIDS epidemic, the leather community was one of the parts of the gay and lesbian community that actually stepped up and took leadership.”

Barat acknowledges that the weekend’s sexual experiences don’t get swept under the rug, but people are cognizant of the nature of their personal practices. He says the weekend is more about creating a space for people to socialize together. Afterwards they can return to their hotel rooms, play spaces or dungeons for whatever they like.

“We don’t advertise our big parties as sex parties,” Sox says. “There might be some legal aspect to advertising a sex party. There seems to be some reticence in the leather community to tie together BDSM and sex as in any way synonymous.”

Dempski is quick to point out, however, that the sexual aspects of the leather scene are only part and parcel of the larger package.

“[The sex] does define us just like being gay and having sex with men defines yourself,” says Dempski. “By the same token, if you walk around the Eagle on a Friday night, you’d be amazed about how people are not talking about sex, but about decorating their homes or going for a drive somewhere to the beach.”

Red Bank Businessman Classified as Sex Offender for Spanking Employees

Red Bank Businessman Classified as Sex Offender for Spanking Employees
Anne Thompson
January 12,2006

The operator of a snow-cone business in Red Bank, Tennessee had a clause in his employees' contract that said he could quote, "bust their behinds as he sees fit."
The problem, police say, is that he took that clause literally.
Paul Eugene Leavengood pleaded guilty Thursday to charges he spanked two of his female employees. Prosecutors say what happened to at least the two young women was not only inappropriate, it was criminal.
Leavengood made the guilty plea before Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Doug Meyer Thursday morning. Judge Meyer sentenced Leavengood to 2 years supervised probation. Leavengood must also register as a sex offender with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The judge also ordered Leavengood not to have any contact with the victims, to continue counseling, and not to have unsupervised contact with females under the age of 18. After the sentencing, Leavengood stood outside the court with his attorney, Kenton Holloway, and said, "We hate everything that happened. I wish it never had."
Assistant District Attorney Jason Thomas was ready for a trial, but Thursday Leavengood agreed to plead guilty to two counts of sexual battery.
Thomas says the atmosphere at the Red Bank business was inappropriate, "It was to some degree sexual in nature, with some joking and some things going on. You might call them overtones."
Two of the young women who worked for Leavengood, and were spanked, came forward to authorities. Thomas says it would have been hard on the women to go through a trial, to testify about the sensitive nature of what happened to them, but he also says they are two young ladies of tremendous grit.
Except for his attorney, Leavengood sat alone in Judge Doug Meyer's court.
After his sentencing, he told us that his actions have taken a toll on him and his family, so he accepted the plea agreement. Leavengood said, "It isn't necessarily what I wanted to do, but I also have to look at the feelings of other folks and how it affects them. So that weighed pretty heavily on our decision. I'm anxious to have this behind me."

Wachowski sex scandal behind Matrix suckage?

Wachowski sex scandal behind Matrix suckage?

Posted Jan 13th 2006 5:01PM by Karina Longworth

Everyone's talking about the new, loooong Rolling Stone expose of Larry Wachowski, one half of the creative duo behind Bound, The Matrix, and V for Vendetta. Much of its many thousands of words are dedicated to Larry's immersion, apparently ever-deeper since the first Matrix film made him a zillionaire, into the world of sex clubs, transvestitism, and sadomasochism. The article goes into detail into Larry's relationship with Mistress Ilsa Strix, a dominatrix who says her "greatest accomplishment" was "putting 333 needles into a single penis" (it is unclear if the penis in question belonged to the aforementioned filmmaker). Through Ms. Strix, Wachowski has apparently found an outlet through which to experiment with various fetishes, from cross-dressing to torture. None of which are inherently problematic – unless you're of the mind, as some of RS' Peter Wilkenson's sources are, that the latter two Matrix films owe their general suckage to Ilsa's influence.

Sources claim that the most garish and widely criticized elements of Reloaded and Revolutions – particularly the former's over-the-top rave scene – slipped through the Wachowskis' bullshit radar because Larry "was totally concentrating on Ilsa." What began as a professional master-slave relationship developed into more when Larry started flying Ilsa, first class, to Austrailia to "tend" to him on the set of the two sequels. "Larry would pick her up at the airport dressed as [Larry's female alter ego] 'Lana,'" says a source. "He would get depressed and moody when he had to go to the set dressed as a man." By the time the Cannes Film Festival rolled around, Ilsa and Larry were making appearances together as a couple, with Ilsa showing up on the red carpet looking movie-star beautiful – "perfect skin, blond hair falling to her shoulders, white teeth gleaming" – and Larry – "his eyebrows were plucked, he wore large teardrop earrings... his fingernails were manicured" – done up almost as glamourously. Rumors started to swirl that the 6-foot-3 working class boy from Chicago was preparing for sexual reassignment.

Was there any truth to the rumors? Wilkenson's investigation doesn't result in any clear-cut answers. The Wachowskis' friends are (probably smartly) not talking, and though the writer gets statements from many representatives from the LA BDSM community, one imagines at least a few of them have ulterior motives. In the years since the last Matrix sequel, the Wachowski camp has remained curiously silent, even as the brothers lurk behind the scenes of Vendetta, which they are said to be heavily involved in, although aren't directing. In bottom-line obsessed Hollywood, if and when Larry does emerge from exile and show his pretty face, will anyone let a little sex change stop them from letting him make them millions of dollars?

A Little Off Topic though Interesting ~ Alert came under Humiliation

Man sues chatroom pals: I was humiliated beyond what 'no man could endure'
By J.K. Dineen
Jan 12, 2006

Mike Marlowe fully admits that he sometimes gave George Gillespie a hard time in that AOL chatroom.

But never in his wildest imagination did he expect to be sued in court for what he characterized as "razzing."

"We gave him crap," said Marlowe, a 33-year-old welder in Fayette, Ala. "I'm not going to deny it. I teased him and he teased me back. He gave it back better than he ever got it."

A generation ago, such petty personal beefs might have been settled with fists outside the corner bar, but now it's the Internet age — and Ohio resident George Gillespie instead filed a $25,000 lawsuit against two erstwhile cyber chums he met in the sprawling 900-room, mostly anonymous society that makes up AOL's chat universe.

Gillespie, 53, claims that Marlowe and Bob Charpentier, a 52-year-old Oregon resident, insulted him and harassed him in the AOL chatroom called "Romance — Older Men" to the point where it inflicted "severe emotional distress and physical injury that is of a nature no reasonable man could be expected to endure it."

The complaint, expected in court on Jan. 31 for a pretrial conference, also names AOL as a defendant for allowing the alleged harassment to take place.

Gillespie alleges that the duo intruded into his "private affairs." The complaint states that Marlowe actually drove from Alabama to Ohio to photograph the plaintiff's home, which he then posted on the Web. He also allegedly went to the courthouse in Medina to dig up personal dirt on Gillespie, which he then also disseminated over the Internet.

The case is not simply "someone conversing in a chatroom" but also involves "harassing someone in Ohio," which gives Ohio courts jurisdiction, according to Gillespie's lawyers.

"Had the defendants stayed in the chatrooms, there would be no jurisdiction here, case closed" Gillespie's attorney Theodore Lesiak stated in the complaint. "Defendant did not."

But Marlowe said he works 60 hours a week at an autobody shop and laughed at the notion that he would drive from Alabama to Ohio to take pictures of Gillespie's house.

"I have never been to Ohio and I have absolutely no desire to go to Ohio," Marlowe said. "There is nothing there — the Cincinnati Bengals are there, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame maybe, and that's about it."

Even if Marlowe did take a trip to Ohio, posting a picture of someone's house on the Internet does not violate privacy laws, according to Chris Hoofnagle, attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"Those norms require the aggressor to engage in behavior that is highly offensive to a reasonable person," he said. "Taking a picture of somebody's house and putting it up on the Web is not that."

Hoofnagle said Gillespie's emotional distress claim will also be tough to prove.

"We live in a rough society, as compared to Europe, where offending someone or directly cursing or attacking their dignity can give you a cause of action," he said.

Power Struggle in 'Romance — Older Men'

Charpentier said he first encountered Gillespie more than five years ago and at first, the two chatters were friendly. But Charpentier says he quickly became disenchanted by what he saw as Gillespie's mean streak.

Things really turned ugly four years ago when Charpentier traveled to Kentucky to meet another chatroom regular, a woman who was also a friend of Gillespie's. The blind date did not go particularly well, and when Charpentier returned to he discovered that Gillespie had gone on the attack.

"He just came in slamming on me, saying all kinds of derogatory crap: that I was a fat, bald, broke old man who sits around in a rusted wheelchair," said Charpentier, who has a chronic back injury. "I don't even own a wheelchair."

Charpentier, who has filed a response seeking to reserve the right to file a $125,000 countersuit against Gillespie, said Gillespie threatened to kill him and "made sick and disgusting remarks about the passing of my grandmother."

"He is an AOL computer thug, that is all he is," Charpentier said.

Marlowe characterized the dispute as a petty power struggle. He said Gillespie was the de facto leader of the "Romance — Older Men" chatroom, and didn't like it when he and Charpentier challenged his authority.

But Marlowe said he never took the chatroom antics personally — until he was served with a lawsuit.

"I don't know how four years of bantering back and forth led to this insane nonsense," he said. "It's just the Internet, for God's sake. It's nothing important."

Michael Gordon, an attorney for AOL, declined to comment, saying, "This is just the beginning stages of this thing."

Megan Gray, a Washington D.C.-based intellectual property attorney who specializes in cyber issues, called it "a loser of a case." She said the Communications Decency Act gives AOL immunity from chatroom misconduct.

"AOL cannot be held liable for the actions of people on the site," she said.

She also suggested the case against Marlowe and Charpentier was doomed.

"The Internet is such a vibrant, young medium, these types of cases are not taken seriously," she said.

@}-}rebecca---- said:

"He is an AOL computer thug, that is all he is," Charpentier said.

Click to expand...

o.o

rofl

*sues graceanne for eating my share of the cookies*

Victim’s mom seeks justice in dominatrix case

Victim’s mom seeks justice in dominatrix case
By Dave Wedge


For more than five years, Audrey Lord has struggled with lingering questions about her son’s bizarre disappearance from a Quincy S&M palace.
The 81-year-old Texas mom is hoping to get some answers starting today when dominatrix Barbara Asher goes on trial for manslaughter for the July 3, 2000, death of 53-year-old Michael Lord.
“It’s been so long. My child is gone. My life has never been the same,” Lord said in a phone interview from her Texas home this week. “I just don’t know what could have happened to him. I just know it was bad.”
Prosecutors allege that Asher, a professional dominatrix known as Mistress Lauren M, and her fugitive boyfriend Miguel “Mr. Versace” Ferrer, chopped up Lord after he died during a kinky bondage session in Asher’s Quincy condo. Lord’s car was recovered in Salem, N.H. — where Asher reportedly said it was stashed — but no trace of the burly retired phone company lineman has been recovered.
While Asher’s lawyers have floated the notion Lord could still be alive, the family has a memorial headstone on a family burial plot in Peterboro, N.H., near Lord’s home.
“I hope there’s some kind of justice. She deserves everything she gets,” Audrey Lord said of Asher.
Proving manslaughter without any remains will be a tall task for Norfolk District Attorney William Keating’s prosecutors, who will pin their case on an alleged confession which Asher later recanted.
According to prosecutors, Lord was hooded and tied to a rack when he died in Asher’s makeshift dungeon — possibly of a heart attack. Asher, 55, reportedly told authorities she and Ferrer cut him up with a hacksaw and dumped the remains in Maine. Ferrer, who is charged as an accessory, is on the lam.
The bizarre case has also sent shock waves through Boston’s underground bondage community. Cecilia Tan of the New England Leather Alliance, which throws a massive Fetish Fair every year, said the case has become a “cautionary tale” for the S&M crowd.
“Any kind of a play situation where something goes wrong, you have to react like you’re the first responder to an emergency,” said Tan. “We hope it makes people realize they have to be more careful.”

Chicklet said:

o.o

rofl

*sues graceanne for eating my share of the cookies*

Click to expand...

If the case is a success against the plaintiff, then you can sue gracie for her cookies.

T for transsexual

T for transsexual
NY Daily News

Early raves are coming in for "V for Vendetta," the latest from "Matrix" filmmakers the Wachowski brothers. The only thing no one knows is: Are they still the Wachowski brothers?

Unconfirmed reports have circulated that Larry Wachowski has undergone hormonal, and perhaps surgical, sex-change procedures since divorcing his wife for a professional dominatrix in 2003. The woman's cuckolded husband - who is himself transgendered - has identified Wachowski as a cross-dresser, but not physically transsexual.

One Hollywood insider tells me: "It is my understanding that he did go ahead with the surgery." And Rolling Stone reports that legal documents relating to his divorce and San Francisco home identify him as "Laurenca Wachowski."

So, what to call him? Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality says: "If someone is presenting as a woman, then the respectful thing to do would be to address them as that."

Interestingly, in transgender etiquette, becoming a woman would not necessarily prevent Larry from still being a Wachowski "brother." Keisling says she is still her son's "dad," despite now being female.

A rep for the film, which opens March 17, did not comment.