LGBTQ
BDSM and Critical Theory
Author Lorelei
The Homosexual Agenda Revealed!
Author Lorelei
I re-read the sentence slowly, hoping it would make more sense this time around.
Organized homosexuality, with its belief in sex-for-its-own-sake, is an important Illuminati control mechanism.
Nope, still ridiculous.
Organized homosexuality? Do they mean the Pride parades? Or the many fine LGBT organizations that fight for our basic rights to live, work, and visit our partners in the hospital? I doubt it. The tone is much more frightened — and frightening.
I won’t link to this website — Google it if you must — but it also posits that George W. Bush is secretly gay and that all world leaders belong to a pagan Jewish Satanic sex cult. That in itself would be something of a stretch, but then the site claims that the cult led us all into
Illuminism, Communism, Freemasonry, Feminism, Zionism and “sexual liberation.”
Also the Holocaust.
Illuminati bankers are harvesting the fruit of their centuries-old plot to destroy Christian Civilization and trap humanity on an eternal treadmill of greed, sex, violence, trivia and political correctness.
Riiiiiight.
If queer folk are secretly controlling the world, how come we can’t get married? Why are we still targets of violence? If feminism is a worldwide conspiracy with inordinate power, why do women still earn so much less than men? If a secret cabal of socialists is in charge, how did we end up in a huge economic crisis caused by greedy capitalist bankers?
And if middle-aged white “Christian” men are so desperately disenfranchised, why isn’t the rest of the world like Berkeley?
Modern Sex Conference: Communication or Old-Fashioned Silencing?
Author Lorelei
Oregon State University is hosting a conference on Modern Sex: Privilege, Communication, and Culture. They invited the eminent Tristan Taormino to be keynote speaker. Great choice!
Then — after she had bought plane tickets, which they are now refusing to reimburse — they canceled her appearance. Why? Does it turn out she isn’t actually an internationally known and respected sex educator? No. Everybody acknowledges her impressive CV: the decade as a sex columnist for the Village Voice, her dozens of appearances at college campuses to lecture about sex, her many workshops and television appearances, her fine films, her well-crafted, thoughtful, intelligent writings.
In fact, all those things that make her an expert are the reason they’re canceling. Because she does know and write about sex, and makes films about sex, and gives advice about sex on her wonderful website, and probably even has sex herself. (OK, I’ll be honest. They didn’t actually say that it’s because she might not be a virgin, but I bet they’re thinking it.)
I realize this sounds insane. It is insane. It’s also incredibly stupid.
The problem is this:
On Tuesday, January 18, 2011, Steven Leider, Director of the Office of LGBT Outreach and Services contacted Colten Tognazzini, Tristan Taormino’s manager, to say that the conference had come up short on funding. Tognazzini told him that since the travel was booked and the time reserved, they could work with whatever budget they did have. Leider said that would not be possible: “We have to cancel Ms. Taormino’s appearance due to a lack of funding. It has been decided that OSU cannot pay Ms. Taormino with general fee dollars, because of the content of her resume and website.” At OSU, ‘general fee dollars’ include taxpayer dollars given to the University by the Oregon State Legislature to defray various costs. They differ from ‘student activity dollars,’ which are part of every student’s tuition and help fund student groups and activities.
Just let that soak in, friends. OSU refuses to pay an expert because the taxpayers might be bothered by her specialty. Yeah, I know: we’re living in an era that is positively psychotic about sexuality, when it’s fine to use the hint or promise or exploitation of a natural urge to sell everything but Bibles, but honest, open discussion about sex and its pleasures leads to screaming hysteria that we’ll all end up pregnant and syphilitic in hell.
Dear OSU: 99% of taxpayers have sex, had sex, will have sex, obsess about sex, and could use some education about sex. You had a chance to be a leader and stand for the university’s intellectual freedom. Now you look like timid fools. “Fools” because just paying Taormino out of the general fund would have been fine, and now you have a major scandal on your hands.
How You Can Help
Tristan Taormino says:
If you support free speech and my mission of sexual empowerment, here’s how you can help:
—Twitter: retweet my original post and make sure to include the hash tag #OSUantisex:
Keynote by @TristanTaormino canceled by OSU admin b/c of resume & website RT in protest http://tinyurl.com/4f4wmor #OSUantisex
—Twitter: reply to Dean of Student Life @deanmamta and @oregonstateuniv
—Email or call: voice your opinion about OSU’s decision to cancel my appearance at the last minute and not reimburse me for travel expenses to the following people (read press release below for details)
Larry Roper, Vice Provost for Student Affairs 632 Kerr Administration Building Corvallis, OR 97331-2154 541-737-3626 (phone) 541-737-3033 (fax) email: larry.roper@oregonstate.edu
Dr. Mamta Motwani Accapadi Dean of Student Life A200 Kerr Administration Building Corvallis, OR 97331-2133 541-737-8748 (phone) 541-737-9160 (fax) email: deanofstudents@oregonstate.edu twitter: @deanmamta
Dr. Edward J. Ray President 600 Kerr Administration Building Corvallis, OR 97331-2128 541-737-4133 (phone) 541-737-3033 (fax) email: pres.office@oregonstate.edu
Leslie Feinberg and the Problem of Family
Author Lorelei
Reposted from Questioning Transphobia
Good News!
Author Lorelei
Federal judge: Gay marriage ban unconstitutional.
Later I’ll post analysis. Now — well, now I am rejoicing.
Celebrate Harvey Milk Day
Author Lorelei
Happy birthday, dear Harvey Milk. You still give us hope.
I am celebrating with tickets to Mollena‘s one-woman show, 69Stories. Not only is she a brilliant writer/performer, she is the 2010 International Ms. Leather.
Go forth and be as queer, as flamboyant, as unique as you are. Harvey Milk died for your right to be queer. For too many of us, the alternative was staying home and the slow, stifling suicide of the closet, or the faster death of addictions or the razor. But some of us came to San Francisco where we could be out and proud: freaky, passionate, kinky, and accepted.
Oakland Cross-Dressers Will Soon Be Safer
Author Lorelei
San Francisco preceded Oakland with a similar law in 1866. By 1930, most cities in California had dress code laws. From the mid-19th century, the state enacted all kinds of legislation against LGBT behavior; convictions led to forced sterilization, castration, indefinite hospitalization and life imprisonment. The law lumped child molesters and homosexuals together as “perverts.” Women suffragists wore pants in protest. German theorist Karoly Maria Kertbeny disputed the criminalization of “homosexuality” (a term he coined). Racist medical texts linked the idea of “degenerate” races with “degenerate” sexualities. [emphasis added]Hmm, does any of this rhetoric sound familiar? Especially conflating consensual same-sex relationships with child rape. So repealing this law is another way the good city of Oakland can affirm its support of LGBTQ and genderqueer people.
Y2Gay
Author Lorelei
Y2Gay: the database engineering perspective on same-sex and polyamorous marriage.
Yes, it’s funny. But it’s also a fascinating practical issue, and the solutions presented seem eminently doable to me.Hi, I’m Bi
Author Lorelei
It’s National Coming Out Day. My name is Lorelei, and I’m bisexual. (Also a polyamorous queer sadistic Domme and occasional switch, but we’ll talk about all that later.)
This sexual identity is deep-rooted in me. There never was a time when I was attracted only to one gender. Even in times when I have been romantically or sexually involved with only one, the other desire was always there, craving attention. Usually it came out in dreams.
“But you have to choose!” some people insist. “You can’t sit on the fence.”
I have chosen, and I’m not sitting on any fences, thanks. I’m staking out my own ground, where I can love bears, butches, sissies, and femmes of all genders.
Notice I don’t say “regardless of gender.” I do a lot of gender play, and I am especially attracted to people at the extremes of the gender spectrum. Lovely femmy guys and burly bearded men, butch dykes and curvaceous femmey women. My beautiful partner and femsub can do butch or high femme. My male lover is a classic bear, tall, bearded, muscular, full-bellied—and has a thick head of waist-length hair. And despite my powerful identification as a woman, I’m also genderqueer in a peculiarly high-handed way.
One reason that “bisexual” is such a problematic term is that it suggests that there are two genders. In my experience, gender is considerably more fluid and complex than a simple binary. But that’s just the start of the bisexual dilemma. Or trilemma. Or polylemma.
Being bisexual can be an uncomfortable position. (It’s the middle of the road where most accidents happen.) I have a lot more sympathy for the lesbian and gay folks who get angry when we hide behind het privilege than for the straight ones who think we’re sneaky and unsettling.
Actually, almost everybody thinks that bisexuals are treacherous, greedy, self-indulgent, incapable of commitment, and lying to themselves about their real orientation. Did I miss any of the usual stereotypes? Oh yes—bisexuals are narcissists in love only with their own sexuality, willing to let anybody do them, as long as somebody does.
And we all have heard that bisexual women save their real loyalty for men. That their desire for women is mostly a desire to please and titillate a men who gets hot watching them make love before diving in with his manly meathood to satisfy them both. Any shadow of that attitude infuriates me, and God knows how often it’s commercially exploited. Too often.
My bisexuality is very far from being an experiment, a pose to turn men on, or an escape from my true lesbian nature. It’s at the core of my being, and I’ve had passionate, lasting, intense erotic and romantic relationships with both men and women. I was married to a sissy man for 17 years. I’ve been involved with my femsub for more than 11 years, with my male lover for 6. I cannot imagine giving either one of those relationships up, turning away from love, friendship, and endless desire. Not being able to marry either one of them is one of the frustrations of my life. Marrying her is illegal. Marrying him would misrepresent my relationship with her and his with his longterm partner. (He’s been with her for more than 25 years. She is one of my closest friends.)
It’s so easy for society to dismiss the same-sex relationship as a tasty snack compared to the solid, nutritious meal of heterosexual commitment. And maybe for some people that’s true. Not for me.
Go right down to the heart of me, and you’ll find love, desire, friendship for both men and women. I’m Lorelei, and I am bisexual.
BiNetUSA, a great US site for information and support on bisexuality.
Collective Nouns
Author Lorelei
A friend asked what would be the collective noun for a group of gay men. I responded:
I think it depends on various factors:
a fist of otherwise unspecified gay men a star of twinks a pelt of bears a cruise or a hankie of gay bars a tosca of opera queens a roundup or a lasso of gay cowboys
Same with lesbians:
a rouge of femmes a bench (shortened from workbench) of butches a daddy or a diesel of dykes a scoop of earth mothers a lick or a fist of lesbians
Also:
a quirk or quark of queers a cadre of LGBTQ activists a buffet of bisexuals (waffle is also used, but may be considered disparaging) a kate of genderqueers
For any of us, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer:
a family of lovers
Goddamn it. A *family*. Is that so complicated?