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If you’re interested in leather community history and you’re in SF, this will be a wonderful opportunity!
If I weren’t in London, I’d help with this. I hope someone can.

:)

------ Forwarded Message
From: Rae <raenforest@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:35:02 -0700
To: <raenforest@gmail.com>
Subject: Last-Minute Volunteers Needed for Folsom exhibit at GLBT Historical Society


Last-Minute Volunteers Needed!
The GLBT Historical Society and Folsom Street Fair are producing an exhibit on the 25 years of Folsom's history.
The exhibit is due to open on Thursday, and we need your help to get everything on the walls and ready for the opening! We need people to help hang photos, paint, cut and tape labels, etc.

If you're available, we could use help at any of the following times
Sunday, July 20 (tomorrow), 9am to 8pm
Monday, July 21, 5:30pm to 9pm
Wednesday, July 23, 5:30pm to 9pm

At the GLBT Historical Society, 657 Mission (between New Montgomery and 3rd), Suite 300, SF

If you're available to help out, please call (909-816-5606) or email me (raenforest@gmail.com). Or, you're welcome to stop by, you'll just need to call up to get the door code.

Please pass this along to any friends or lists who might be interested.

And, of course, we'd love to have you at the opening, to see the completed exhibit!
Thursday, July 24, 6-9pm

Thanks!!
-Rae

Rae Goldman
Co-curator, 25 Years of Folsom, GLBT Historical Society
Board Associate, Folsom Street Events
raenforest@gmail.com



------ End of Forwarded Message

hurrah for necks

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Thank you for all the support. K and I both need it and we both truly appreciate.

Flight to London was 2 hours late, but I got my upgrade so I got the sleep I so desperately needed in a reclining seat. (which meant that I didn't get the writing and corrospondances done that I needed to but I needed the sleep too.) A couple of rows back an infant was yoweling sounding just like Tigger's pain cries towards the end. My sound reduction headset couldn't shut that out. I'm glad that eventually I fell into an exhausted sleep. They need to develop anti-screaming-child headset... oh and to the older couple next to me - Will the gentleman please give in a get a hearing aid? I counted you saying "what?" to you wife 5 times in one minute. that was just that one minute. oy.

Arrived to my friends' place safely. Settled in. Trying to do normal things like e mail and such. I need to write my article. I have to get up at 6am tomorrow and get to the rope stylist gig for lsgmodels.com across town. I hope the jet lag and mental/emotional/physical exhaustion will work in my favor to get me to sleep tonight.

(Aside: I just realized that Tigger started her passing a half hour before the exact full moon and died exactly an hour after the time of the full moon.)

It's hard to focus at any stretch of time. I need to buck up and focus on work through Tuesday night's big presentation.

I hope K's ok... I hear that the two fur kids are working out their pecking order and power struggle now that the elder-statescat is gone.

the newest hood from HWdesign

   

The new HW-DESIGN CORRECTIONAL HOOD! A very special hood with a locking zipper. Removing the hood is not possible without the key.

Okay, this is fascinating. (Note that "I am fascinated" does not equal "I approve" or "I agree".)

Strangely enough, Daniel's wedding day didn't upset me at all. It was his 30th birthday six months later which really got to me, as he stood there with his wife Alison while they greeted the guests. I can honestly say that that was the only time when I felt real envy and wished desperately that it was me standing beside him, arms round each other as we showed the world how much we loved each other.

It's not as if I'm not allowed to love Daniel, but the way we feel about each other isn't something that we can share easily with anyone else. Daniel is my brother, but since I was 14 we've had a sexual relationship - and that's not something that many people would feel comfortable with.

.... Fuelled by drink or maybe just rage, she started talking in a very intense but hushed way about how close siblings could be, going on to say that she was sure that many people experimented sexually with them as they grew up and then simply grew out of it. She said it was like practising your social skills on your family and so long as it was mutual, she couldn't see the harm. I didn't say much - partly because I couldn't believe that I'd met someone who seemed to be like me - and she very quickly clammed up and moved over to talk to someone else and never brought up the subject again.

.... I think the only reason that I'm talking about it now is to emphasise that I truly believe that she was right - it doesn't happen to everyone but it happens to some, and I don't want to be made to feel guilty about it. Incest is so often spoken about in the same breath as abuse, but if you're close in age and equal in relationship terms then it's entirely different. Of course abuse happens, but it can happen in any sexual relationship and there's an expectation that a family member would never hurt you in the way that someone else could. There's no comparison between siblings close in age having sexual feelings and contact and an adult forcing a younger member of the family to do something they neither understand nor want to be involved in.

....All the sex education I'd had said that this was wrong, that it was abuse and incest. But it hadn't felt wrong and I certainly hadn't felt forced. Rather, I felt that Daniel had stopped long before I'd wanted him to. It was hours before I finally fell asleep but I was sure of two things - that I'd really enjoyed it and I still adored my brother.

The next morning it was clear that Daniel had a hangover but as he grinned up at me from his prone position on the couch there was no awkwardness or regret between us. We didn't discuss what had happened, but went for a long walk that afternoon with Jane and the dog and everything felt the same, down to Jane chiding us about being irresponsible about leaving our parents to do all the tidying up after new year's dinner.

Over the next few years we had sexual encounters every six months or so, each time going farther and farther until I was 17, when we had full sex for the first time. We both went out with other people and there was never any jealousy, although I found it hard to be physically intimate with anyone else. Part of that was because sex with Daniel was so amazing that I had no patience for all the fumbling that seemed to happen with other boys. The sex was never pre-planned, but just always seemed to happen when there was no chance of being discovered.

....I missed Daniel when he went to university, but went to stay with him every three months or so. Sometimes we would have sex and at other times neither of us seemed interested. By the time he met Alison he was working and I was a student, and I knew that this relationship was different, but it still came as a shock when he told me he wanted to marry her. However, I was more shocked when he said: “You only have to say and I won't marry her, but then I want us to stay together and not see anyone else. We could be the old boring brother and sister who never got married, but ended up sharing a house because no one else would have them! I know this is meant to be wrong but I've never felt anything so right.” This echoed everything that I've thought about our incestuous relationship over the years. After hours of discussion we agreed that it was time to stop the sexual side of our relationship and also decided that telling anyone else was a bad idea, parting in tears afterwards.

The obvious question is "Is it real?" If it is... well, hmm. I don't think what the brother did to initiate the whole thing was in any way appropriate, but it really does seem that if this is real, no harm was done.

It's interesting to me -- I've heard of -- and actually, in some cases, met -- some people who have very weird stories of sexual relationships or sexual initiations that would give most people serious pause, but don't seem to have been harmed in the way so many people are.

Which gets me wondering if what's generally bad really *does* have more to do with intent (after all, "touching your sister" in a culture like ours already *means* molestation. Which means that if you do it, you at the very least don't care if you're hurting her) than with the actions themselves.

I don't know, and I am still wondering if this is the whole story. For me personally, even sexual encounters that my culture does condone (or, well, "pretty much condones" is probably more accurate) and I enjoy can leave me feeling ambivalent and weird. I'm not quite sure I buy that this woman, as a young girl, really thought, "Hmm, health class says this is bad, but I don't agree" in a way that would totally leave her not worrying about being different, or about being mistaken, or the like.

But I don't know. It does seem to me that a situation like the one described here, if it is real, seems to lack a lot of the power dynamics that make incest generally about violence and control.

Thoughts?

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Last night, we spent the evening on the sofa. Grrr got up on the sofa to her favorite spot on her own and we joined her. Sat and played Wii CSI with her between us. Yoshi was hiding. She knew. King David was unusually calm and mellow and just hung around us. G came over and said bye to her.
She ambled off the bed and weakly made her own way down to the bedroom.
K carried her in to bed for an early evening. She settled on her/my pillow between us. She purred purred purred.
Eventually I fell asleep.

Kelly woke me up. I scrambled up and got in to K's bathrobe, which she never gets to wear because I hog it - like Grr with my pillow.
Tigger had gotten up around 4:30am, on her own and made her way out to the hall. K picked her up and took her to her water / food to see if that's what she wanted. Then she tried to make her way back to the litter box.
Dignified to her very end.
We called the house-call vet that could put her down at home.

She took a really bad down turn suddenly. Things were hurting. She crawled under the bed a while. Then into my arms on the floor where she laid her head on my wrist. Things were hurting her. She was a bit scared. She yoweled. I talked to her non stop and told her of my memories of her. We think it calmed her.
Just around 6am she died, quietly, in my arms. No more pain.

She had nearly 17 years with very little medical issues (a bit of kidney stone in her middle age, easily remidied with diet. Fleas that Yoshi brought in when we adopted her, again, easily remidied). She had a cush life (at least I did everything I could for that.) She hated the stepcats but eventually got used to them. She spent her full day and night at home, in her favorite spots, getting to decide what she wanted to do, sleep with Mommy and Daddy and die is their care and arms. No dying in a cage, afraid and lonely.

I wonder if she heard that I didn't want her to die while I was in London?
I'm going to be really really sad now, but I won't be worrying about her health or of K's well-being as she cared for Grrr.

The other kids know. Yoshi in particular, as she went through Sasha's death.

We're now off to the Vets to take Grrr's body for cremation.

Then I have to buck-up and pack and all that and get on a plane to London. I think I'll take a box of tissues with me.

I love the Grrr. Still do. K loves the Grrr too.
no more pain. just energy back to the cosmos.

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paris, FR
eric martin
face stephane dussart
latex hwdesign.at

(just in case you dont come by my LJ)

ok people

tell me

+'s n -'s of the new iPhone

----

i don't want a phone with a contract tho
never in one place long enough

need to swap out my SIMs

moblogging is important
shooting camphone pix impo for me too

also, a phone that can type in other languages
when i put in an é, ß, or ø i want it to send and read it as such


hmm... do these things work in Japan?
are these tri-band or quad-band type o things?

RAwrrrRR

the trailer is up

yum yum yum
http://gizmodo.com/5026434/ner

totally work safe link
and there's even latex from Syren Couture
and it seems miss spectre does ok walkin around in it

si

Puppy kisses make everything feel better.

<3

I read so many people critiquing Firefly, and I just don't get it.

Well, I guess I do get some of it; I get that the Alliance is this weird Yellow Menace and yet nobody, not even Simon and River, who were originally from a pro-Unification family, is actually Asian. That, I get, and that, I find to be a weird-ass oversight. But that's not what's in most of the Firefly-rantosity I read lately.

Instead, I see all these critiques of the sexuality in it, particularly this here, claiming that the portrayal of Inara is a masculine uber-courtesan fantasy, and all I can think of is, well,

OHSHIT, THE NOVEL I AM WRITING DOES THE SAME THING

But, well, I suppose I'm somehow worse and all, given that I didn't research shuyus and just, y'know, was inspired by the character of Phedre in Kushiel's Dart (written by hi! a woman!) and my mind just ran off doodling and before I knew it, hundreds of pages and a universe. And a femme byke protagonist from whose eyes I found myself writing. I never would have ever thunk.

So uh, if even the mighty Whedon can't get it right, am I screwing up and being masculinist? Or being irresponsible because, yeah, one of the two major protagonists (who are both bisexual women, hope I didn't screw THAT one up too *scoffs*) is a "happy hooker"? Or do I get a pass, on account of I have tits too and while my gender is complicated it's not "man"?

Yeah, funny... I don't really think that my novel about two happily drama-ridden space dykes is going to convince stupid boys that no women are in the sex trade because they were forced. And that's not just because I'm not likely even if I do find a publisher and make it big in the alt press to have the audience Whedon does.

So that one really doesn't bug me. I guess what does, here, is the implication that the whole "organized wealthy courtesan culture" thing is only a trope that attracts guess who The Menz, and only attracts them because it makes them feel less guilty about buying people.

It's always attracted me, I think in part because "buying people", even for a little while, is a common SM fantasy that goes with ownership stuff, and in other part because, well, opulence is sexy to me. I'm a Taurus, FFS. We're supposed to think that's cool. (It's interesting, there's a convo going on right now at Kim's where "ownership" is getting mentioned offhand in the list of Big No No. Oops!)

(And yeah, been re-reading another novel that has courtesan-slaves in it, who love their job because of an elven geas that makes them think slavery is the shit. Written by a woman and a man. I lose!)

(And dude, don't even get me STARTED on her take on that scene with Kaylee, because I'll just start spluttering incoherently. Thene hon, I love you but... I'mma have to say NO, there.)

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I'm finding it enormously helpful to write about Tigger here but just don't quite have it to dialogue about her. I hope this makes sense. Just about anything sets me off on wailing and tears now.
I'll be more communicative and open about her soon. In the mean time, thank you for the well wishes. Keep sending the good vibes so she can be comfortable. I'm grateful to have a place to write out my grieving.

We brought her home.
The vet was compasssionate. I can't imagine dealing with distraught pet parents all the time. (The vet bill was astronomical. This is causing some serious changes in my plans and priorities. sigh)

She's camped at the water fountain / bowl. She's very thirsty and no interest in food. She's very weak.
I leave for London tomorrow. I'm preparing myself to the fact that tonight may be my last night with her hogging my pillow - er her pillow I guess.
K will be at home. She'll be caring for her, giving her meds, and may have to call the vet to our home when the time comes. I've been talking about Tigger's illness and my pain but it really sucks for her too. She's been great in supporting me. I'm a wreck.
wreck
wreck

King David's sniffing Tigger.
Yoshi is suspicious of all that's going on. She probably knows - she's the smartest cat we've ever met.

lord I gotta get my act together enough to pack and get ready.
The show must go on.
sigh

I wish I could say I'm surprised this exists, but I'm not.

It's a site on which people can pledge not to use pornography, and not only that, to refuse to have an intimate relationship with anyone who does.

Which, yeah, hardly news, some conservatives do that sort of thing all the time, right? Except that this appears to be linked to anti-porn feminists, such as One Angry Girl, rather than to the Jesus freaks.

I know people on that "side" are tired of hearing that they sound like religious conservatives of the sexually repressive sort, but, well... I'm sorry. I get the same sort of squick from this as I get when I hear of purity balls or Promise Keepers. Because the logic is the same: If I make a commitment not to "fall," I'll be doing something good in the eyes of My Cause. I have to be ready, devoted, on guard against the evils of temptation.

That the Tempter is Patriarchy and not Satan... well, I have a seriously difficult time understanding how that's not the same shit on a different day.

And it's even worse to me that part of the pledge is to swear not to date someone who uses it. How exactly is someone, even someone fortitudinous enough -- or just plain uninterested in dirty pictures enough -- to never use porn, supposed to suss out whether her partner will ever do something? Isn't that a weird kind of pressure to put on someone? I get saying "porn use really bothers me, and if you do it, I may need to move on" but I don't get "Look honey, I put my name on a list! So you'd better never, ever, ever..."

Well, bright side, at least I know who'll never date me. ;) Seems like a rather silly reason not to date me to ME, really, but well... if someone wants that badly to control what I do when I'm not with them (since such a person would surely not want to use it together), it's not going to work out anyway.

ETA: I may have spoken too soon when I said this is connected to APRFs but not to any religious groups. Here's the credit at the bottom of the page:

A joint project of the AntiPorn Activist Network, Through The Flame.org, and One angry girl designs.

Through The Flame's page appears to be a run-of-the-mill There Is Help For Porn Addiction type website. One of the pages it includes is this one:

What can the great religions teach us about pornography?

...the quotes on which seem to be a rather large collection of anti-woman commentary on not seeing women as an enticement, and not being drawn to "immorality." (I get that the Buddhist bit is supposed to be meditations on the ugliness of the human body to discourage lust in general, but I'm personally leery of it on a page like this in a way I might not be if I saw it in a different context.)

None of which makes any direct reference to pornography -- or anything that could be considered an early forerunner of it, like sexually explicit art or writing -- at all anyway! So how is is that the great religions are teaching us about it?

And, well, I want to know something, folks: If this is an addiction, that's compulsive behavior. Doesn't the compulsion mitigate the "immorality" of what one is doing? Doesn't it not make sense for God not to allow you into His presence, as some of those scriptures suggest, if you're actually an addict who is struggling against a physical compulsion based on brain chemistry?

It's a sloppy misunderstanding of what an addiction actually is, IMO. On the one hand, they want to claim it's chemical so everyone will fear falling into the trap, but on the other they need the heaps of guilt that stem from the idea that someone is freely choosing to spurn healthy sexuality for the forbidden fruit.

So yeah. Not religious, but just HAS to mention "you won't get into heaven if you lust," where "lust" in those contexts doesn't appear to be any kind of comment on a capitalist industry. "Lust" in these contexts means "don't desire women you don't already own."

I'm always flabbergasted when the most radical of feminists, the kind who are always seeking out the influence of patriarchy on everything we do, are OK with this kind of thing. It's like... how one dresses, acts, or fucks has patriarchy all over it. But religious scriptures in which women, and the sexual desire for women, are talked about in gross ways is all just A-OK, as long as they get men away from the DVD player.

Yeah, I'm flabbergasted by the hypocrisy of it all.

But I'm no longer at all surprised by it.

Daughter Of ETA: By the way, One Angry Girl? This "do not participate in your own exploitation" shirt is low, even for you.

News from Bint Alshamsa, here. I'll quote her on it, as I've not quite figured out my opinion:

I just found out from The F Word that the venerable bastion of transphobic, biphobic and ablist writing that it is Off "Our Backs" may soon have to stop publishing due to financial problems.

Personally, I am absolutely delighted at the possibility of hearing that the death knell might soon be sounding for "Off Our Backs". In almost every transphobic theory, there's also a great big dose of ablism to go with it and oftentimes there a bunch of classist assumptions, too.

Off Our Backs could easily accomplish the positive things it had to offer without de-legitimizing so many women's lives and experiences. Maybe, just maybe, if they hadn't alienated so many women, there would still be more people interested in keeping it alive. I don't have a lot of funds to send to all of the organizations that I admire, so I'd rather support those that don't actively work against the other things I believe in.

I can't wait to pull out the Patrón and have a nice toast to its end. May it come sooner than later!

On the one hand, I can't recall ever reading any issue of oob without wincing. I can't even recall a single article in it that I ever actually liked, though I do remember perusing it one time with a particularly open mind and thinking a few people had a few points. On the whole, though, the (admittedly not too many) articles I read in it struck me as ill-researched, as making emotional appeals at times when doing so was not warranted, as often rather blind to other kinds of oppression than that of women (and even then, usually a default sort of white women), and as frequently defending downright offensive claims.

It also publishes work by women I know by reputation as well as by blog-spat who I strongly believe are less interested in helping women than in becoming minor lights of certain "feminist" subcultures, and it bothers me greatly to see this passed off as honest activist work, or as well-argued theory.

So part of me is not sorry to see it go. Part of me is glad that it, as an icon, won't be around any more, to influence people with poorly-made claims.

And it's not like there aren't feminist publications that I find far more worth reading, even when people DO defend things I find wrong or even dangerous. Reading issues of Hypatia, for example, is a great thing to do. (Not that they're really the same sort of thing, as Hypatia is an academic journal -- but, well, if one really wants (generally) rigorous feminist theory, go there instead!)

But part of me can't help but react with an odd kind of sadness. I've heard that name as a respected enemy for all of my feminist existence, and it's always seemed like the last vanguard to me in an amorphous sense. If both sides ever actually appeared in OOB, how might things change? And now that may never be possible. It may be that those kinds of feminism will die, not change. Break in the wind, not bend. And that saddens me.

I'm also, well, big on speech, as I've said before here many a time. And as such, it saddens me to see people like this lose their platform rather than change their minds. I don't like what they have to say, but I'd much rather live in a world where people say things I really don't like and I have to speak to that than a world where people who believe in what I do have won by default.

So... on some level I feel Bint's happiness. I'm glad that that form of feminism is being forced to change or die. But I can't say I'll be breaking out a glass of Chardonnay over it.

Though I will say I find it half-amusing that the very fact that I think they're ridiculously oversimplifying the idea of "tolerance" and therefore are wrong to call it bad is the very reason I'm not hooting with glee that they might stop publishing.