May 292018
 



Dec 062024
 

Strub, Whitney. 2011. Perversion for Profit : The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right. New York: Columbia University Press. Amazon

I’ve been reading Whitney Strub’s book, and despite its age, it is still very relevant in explaining the culture war over pornography in American politics. One of the things he details is though American history is littered with censorious firebrands like Anthony Comstock, those moral crusaders frequently stumbled over the problem that the majority of Americans don’t care very much about pornography as an issue. Men like Comstock and Charles Keating of Citizens for Decent Literature could mobilize a small, but vocal minority.

As Strub tells it, when the neoconservatives and the New Right rose to cultural power in the 1970s, they had to reconcile their belief in small government, free markets, and libertarianism with more culturally conservative allies, particularly evangelical Christians.

Thought it sought a socially conservative, generally religious voting base, the New Right was heavily corporate-sponsored, and such groups as the Committee for Survival of a Free Congress recognized the value of neocon thought in legitimizing their project of deregulating American markets even as they reregulated American morality.[Pg.190]

We’ve seen this strange-bedfellows alliance ever since, creating people who believe the Invisible Hand should rule everywhere except areas like pornography, abortion, and queer issues.

In 1979 the New Right organizer Paul Weyrich had come dangerously close to admitting the movement’s emphasis on social issues was a shallow commitment designed to garner evangelical votes while obscuring the substantive procorporate agenda of New Right politicians: “Yes, they’re emotional issues, but that’s better than talking about capital formation,” he said. Certainly the corporate benefactors of the New Right’s organizational superstructure valued profits over ideology; Coors, for instance, was headed by a reactionary zealot whose donations largely funded the important Heritage Foundation. But when the company recognized the consumer power of the gay market in 1979, it unhesitatingly ran ads in the gay paper the Advocate. [Pg.191-192]

More than 40 years later, we still see the same dynamic, even if the names have changed: trans people instead of gay people, puberty blockers instead of abortion, “cultural Marxism” instead of “the permissive society”. The 2023 brouhaha over trans streamer Dylan Mulvaney endorsing Bud Light suggests that the free-marketers sometimes back down when challenged by the cultural conservatives. Donald Trump himself embodies this contradictory political alliance: a man with multiple wives and a history of sexual indiscretions, who has been on the cover of Playboy magazine, can somehow be favored by the Christian right and even more reactionary forces. Grifters and quacks like Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson constantly stoke culture wars over issues of sexuality and gender, anything to drown out considerations of economic policy from the discourse.

I’ve said it before, and I hope I’m wrong, but I still think it’s only a matter of time before BDSM takes the place of trans in this particular social-political complex.

Nov 152024
 

Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships

Pleasure Me Now, Virtual Vibrations: Bringing LDR Bliss With Blowjob Machines

Tantric Sexual Healing, Awakening Intimacy: A Tantric Journey to Sacred Sensuality

Erotic Fiction

Fern River Cub, Luc listens in

Lexi Rose, The Message: A Short Erotic Story – Part 1

Modesty Ablaze, “A Naughty Surprise” Part 4 of my Hotwife Diaries Audio Reading

Product Reviews

Sydney Screams, The Bivius Alien Dildo by Uberrime

Morgan Destera, TOY TEST – Funzze Black Fantasy Dildo

Liz X, Kiiroo Pearl 3 Vibrator Review: Remote Play & Video Sync Make It Unstoppable

Sex Toy DB, The Top 5 Squirting Dildos in 2024 to Simulate Ejaculation

Of Sex and Love, Heidi

Erotic Non Fiction

Awakening Your Inner Essence, A Tantric Perspective on Reclaiming Our Inner Worth

Kristina J, Humiliation To Liberation: A Dance Of Desire – 10 Years Of Submission

barefoot sub, Dancing In The Dark

Femina Viva, Managing the “feels” when visiting a companion

Sex Work

Carman Fox, Master Escort Communication

Thornhill Digital, The Future of Labour Rights Within Online Sex Work

Elizabeth, Torture Goddess

Sex Worker Search, Sex Worker Blogs via RSS Feed

Oz Bigdownunder, Oz in Dubai. Australian Halal Sausage is Back on the Menu

Books and Movies

The History of BDSM, The People’s Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America, by Lisa Z. Sigel

Writing about writing

Ramone Quides, When One Door Closes, Meditation Begins

Nov 152024
 
Nov 142024
 
Margaret Qualley as Rebecca and Christopher Abbott as Hal.

Sanctuary is a 2022 drama film directed by Zachary Wigon and written by Micah Bloomberg. IMDB Amazon

This essay contains spoilers.

Sanctuary resembles David Ives’ stage play Venus in Fur (film adaptation by Roman Polanski): it focuses on two people in a single location, and deals with the constantly shifting power relations between a man and a woman.

Hal (Christopher Abbot) is the heir of a hotel empire. He’s about to be appointed the CEO after the death of his father. In the luxury suite of one of the hotels, he meets with Rebecca, who at first appears to be a lawyer who will interview him for the position. This escalates into a humiliation scene of Rebecca watching while Hal cleans the toilet in his underwear.

Continue reading »
Nov 012024
 
Reggie and Pete on the road

The Leather Boys is a 1964 British “kitchen sink” drama film about the working-class motorcycle club culture of the early 1960s. While featuring little explicit sex of any kind, it does provide a glimpse of the leather-clad biker culture of the time in the UK. It was also an early sympathetic treatment of male homosexuality in British film. Amazon

Continue reading »
Oct 262024
 

Sigel, Lisa Z. 2020. The People’s Porn : A History of Handmade Pornography in America. London: Reaktion Books. Amazon

In the early 21st century, we think of pornography as a ubiquitous, mass-produced, and corporatized phenomenon. Sites like PornHub present the viewer with vast quantities, individually tagged according to theme and sexual act. Advances in video production and distribution technology means almost anybody can make and consume sexual content with a high degree of technical quality and specificity.

Sigel’s book explores an entire history of what might be called “craft” or “artisanal” erotica, produced in single items or small sets, and using a wide variety of media, from carved whalebone to modified mass-produced photos to handmade garments. Many of the items discussed in the book aren’t “erotica” in the usual sense, i.e. items intended to arouse the viewer, perhaps as an aid to masturbation. These artifacts, such as a carved wooden figure of Abraham Lincoln with an erection, might more accurately be described as “adult novelties”.

Continue reading »
Oct 152024
 

Oct 152024
 

Elust is the only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month.

Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice, or kinky discussions, it’ll be here at Elust.

If you have a post included in Elust 177, please re-post the latest edition on your own blog, ideally with your own unique comments next to each link, or a paragraph for each category and/or write your own introduction.

For SEO purposes, non-identical re-posts of Elust are much better for search ranking, and it’s more appealing for readers.

Here’s an Example of Elust 177 published by Sandra with a unique introduction and comments next to the links.

Oz

Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships

Musings of a Switch, Porn thoughts

Tantric Sexual Healing, Sacred Sex: A Path to Deep Connection and Spiritual Awakening

The Disorderly House, How to Fuck Yourself, An Ultimate Sexual Self Intimacy Guide

Betty’s Toy Box, Experience Your Ultimate Pleasure: 10 Types of Orgasm for You to Try

Erotic Non Fiction

Kristina J, Manners Matter: Why Being Polite is Sexy (and Non-Negotiable, Even for Sex Workers)

Awakening Your Inner Essence, Exploring The Full Body Orgasm: A Personal Journey as a Tantric Practitioner

Little Red Spanking, The Lover’s Spat: A Paddle Story

Thoughts & Advice on Kink & Fetish

Pain as Pleasure, Building A Role Play– Chat GPT and the end (or beginning) of everything

Erotic Fiction

Jerusalem Mortimer, In the Realm of the Sensei Prologue-3

Sugarbutch, Don’t Swallow

Jasmine Gold, A Nun’s Humiliation

Product Reviews

Buzzing Babe, The Best Male Vibrators for Pleasure You Didn’t Know Existed (2024)

Liz X, Powerful Pleasure: Kiiroo’s Duo Powerblow FeelPocket Stroker

Sex Work

Hellga, One Overnight in Paris. Fly Me to You

Miss Kim Rub, Top Five BDSM Practices

Sex Worker Search, How to Send a Takedown Request to an Escort Directory

Femina Viva, How to Set Your Price (or not) as a Sex Worker

Sandra, Flogging, DP and Two Pearl Necklaces. A Duo with Oz

Nuit d’Or, Self-care For Dominants

Oz Bigdownunder, I Fucked Her Sissy Tits Off. A Duo with Lady Ava Sheridon and Her Sissy Slave

Books and Movies

History of BDSM, Strangeland (1998): The Celluloid Dungeon

Poetry

Simone Francis, Watch Me

Oct 042024
 

“Sado Machismo” is an essay written by Edmund White and published in New Times, 8 January 1979, reprinted in the collection The Burning Library (Knopf, 1994)

White wrote this at a very different time: Not even ten years after Stonewall, before Cruising and definitely before HIV. The collection notes this essay was “… published during the height of Anita Bryant’s anti-homosexual campaign in Florida and in the midst of the Briggs Amendment campaign in California.” Gays and lesbians fighting for their rights to work as teachers were in the news, but a certain kind of “queer chic” was in the air too.

Continue reading »