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·> Americas Next Top Model Goes Trans
Last week the new faces of America’s Next Top Model cycle 11 were announced. First they had the blind girl, then the girl with aspergers, then the homeless girl who had been molested, followed by the plus sized girl and finally a trans person – Isis Tsunami! Now you know I couldn’t NOT post about a transgendered girl named Isis!
This announcement has caused a media frenzy over at Fox News with anchor Gregg Jarrett and US Magazine editor-at-large Ian Drew claiming the inclusion of a trans person is just a ratings grab and television trend. They also seem to think that this is just another instance of reality television making trans people mainstream.
You can watch video of the television personalities giggling at their own awkwardness like ten year old boys toward “him or her” here. Sorry to break it to you Fox News anchor guys but trans people have been mainstream and have even helped shape the mainstream you revel in.
Trans people have been right under the nose of the mainstream throughout the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. In the 70’s Teri Toye was one of the first transsexuals to get real modeling work, appearing in editorials wearing much coveted Jean Paul Gaultier pantsuits and rocking the runways for Chanel in Paris. I don’t even need to go into the 80’s since the whole decade was a lesson in gender bending and sexual experimentation.
Then RuPaul hit the scene in 1995 as the face of M.A.C. makeup, making her the first drag queen (not the same as trans but in the same arena) with a much sought after cosmetics contract (the winner of ANTM receives a cosmetic contract with Cover Girl) and her own show on VH1. Throughout the later part of the 1990’s Amanda Lepore, a New York icon, walked the runways and appeared in print campaigns for Heatherette.
Recently Andre J. a SOHO scenester and fashionista made it to the cover of French Vogue and now Kenneth Cole’s Fall 2008 ad campaign will feature Nino Poon, a transgender woman. Go to Kenneth Cole to hear about her story and how she came to be the face of their new campaign (let me just take this moment to say girl is fieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerce!!).
With all that said, I think it’s important to note that what we have here with the whole Fox News debacle is a lack of sensitivity and understanding not necessarily “trans bashing”. It’s important for those of us “in the know” about trans issues to cut these losers some slack. They probably don’t know anything about anything and are just trying to covertly figure out this piece of life that has been flying under their radars. It’s difficult to not get immediately angry or outraged at this situation, but we should try and gently educate the peeps at Fox about every spectrum of the LGBTQ arena, so that they can educate all the people that watch daily for their doses of mainstream news. Yay LGBTQ beginners guide! Either way I hope to see more trans people represented in the mainstream and look forward my oldest guilty pleasure (ANTM draglicious) and Isis’ debut September 3rd.
August 26, 2008 – 4:44 pm
·> Black is back in fashion… for July atleast
I’m African American and love fashion so naturally I was beyond jazzercised when Vogue announced they’d be doing an “All Black Issue” meant to address discrimination in the fashion industry. Well actually it’s Italian Vogue, and the concept came as a response to long time fashion agent and model Bethann Hardisons summit “Out of Fashion: The Absence of Color”, where some of the top names of fashion (designers, models, agents and other industry peeps) discussed the decline of, you guessed it, people of color from the fashion industry since the 80’s and 90’s when they were sorta kinda prevalent.
Italian Vogue and world renowned photographer Steve Miesel try their best to highlight black as beautiful but unfortunately the range is narrow. Lots of European features, no kinky hair in sight – basically a Westernized Caucasian standardization of beauty. You can read others critiques about Italian Vogues failure as they make blackness “special” to maintain the status quo.
My biggest gripe with this attempt at racial civility is that there are virtually no people of color featured in any of the advertisements for the various luxury items that act as Vogue’s bread and butter. While the editorials are okay at best, more edgy 80’s throwback aesthetics than beautiful, the fact that people of color are excluded from the Dior, Prada and Louis Vuitton ads sends a pretty clear message: Even though African Americans spend $845 billion dollars on fashion and luxury goods, they’re not sought or included in the branding, but they’re money is still accepted. The only thing ground breaking and deserving of props in this issue is the inclusion of a “plus sized”, model (that’s regular people size), Toccara Jones from America’s Top Model Cycle. Way to cross over girl! But even this representation falls into the “black = bootlicious = only way to be beautiful/desirable” equation that you see play out in ass and titty magazines (NSFW).
Having diverse representations of beauty is good for everyone, both socially and financially. Seriously. Its also important because a generation of little girls are growing up believing that beauty is homogeneous and that if they don’t fit a very narrow, nearly unobtainable standard that they are not desirable.
I didn’t expect this Vogue to fix the problem, or particularly raise awareness but the fact that the issue is flying off the shelves of newsstands around the world, even calling for 40,000 reprints, might start a conversation that needs to be had around ethnic representations of diversity around beauty and consumerism.
You can peep the photo spread here and chime in. I’m interested to hear with you think.
·> My bad… absenteeism sucks
Momentum momentum where have you gotten to? My bad, I’ve been MIA for a few reasons.
Long story short, after enduring ten plus episodes chronicling the raunch and pain of Tila Tequila’s search for love, her final decision between Bo, a total fanboy and Kristy, a bodylicious first time bisexual – lesbian relationship (yep, we all can see where this was headed but watched on as the carnage unfurled) nears. Welp, Tila cut Bo loose in favor of Kristy, who – wait for it – turned her down because she was “scared and confused” – but probably because she too is a fake bisexual (or “gay for fame” as a colleague pointed out). Craziness. I was prepared, yet unprepared for such amazingly good trash TV madness coated in Tilas fake tears and humiliation. Usually I don’t partake in other people’s misery or heartbreak but I had to LOL as she received some sort of cosmic punishment for past reality TV romance blunders.
I’ve also been heavily distracted by the recent developments in the world of video games. Last week E3 touched down with a whole slew of games that have me salivating!
The Wheelman, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War 2 and Little Big Planet are just a few of the titles slated to drop at the end of this year and in the first quarter of 2009. Naturally my employer has come to accept that I’ll be straggling into the office in my pink cloud pajamas, sallow from the previous sleepless night of epic level conquering. Can’t. Wait. So what does this have to do with sex or sexual health? Nothing at all. Okay. That’s a lie - I get turned on by the fps and carnage dealing hardware, but lets get real for a moment. While it’s widely believed that only guys game, recent reports show that 38% of gamers are girls. And yes, while most girl gamers opt for games of a more casual nature like The Sims or just about anything on the Wii, some of us lock and load, and enjoy wading through a heap of bodies. Don’t believe me? Check out one of the many all girl gaming leagues like the Fragg Dolls and blogs that smote their opponents from coast to coast.
·> Porno For the People
It’s fair to say that the wonderful invention known as the internet has brought us an abundant selection of porn, from the free and amateur, to the high production pay stuff. Some of it is okay, but most of it, well, most of it features gruesomely tan impossibly built bodies grinding lubeless genitals, without eye contact and that almost tangible sexual chemistry that should reach you through the screen… hardly my idea of good times.
So I got to wondering, is there any other pornographic outlets that don’t feature mechanistic fucking? Well luckily for you, me and everyone in between, there is. Whilst perusing the many community content porn sites and then some, I stumbled across Porn for the Blind. Porn for the Blind is a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass and was established for the sole purpose of making porn clips available online to people who are visually impaired. Volunteer ‘audiodescribers’ watch porn videos and describe the action for those that are visually impaired or people just looking to change it up. With 40GB of content (um that’s a lot, especially for audio files) and 50,000 visitors there’s definitely something for everybody.
Yes yes, theres tons of audio porn out there but Porn for the Blind is special because a) its FREE and b) anyone can contribute! c) aaand it’s a method of porno consumption that taps your other senses when solo. With Porn for the Blind your eyes aren’t the gate way to the genitals, and instead the description of hair, skin, the looks on his/her face etc etc etc will be a new way of getting the job done. Head on over, audioscribe if you feel inclined, then load up the mp3 player and do it to it.
And if you’re on the fence about posting a video of your getting it on then Porno for the Blind is a happy medium. The audio recordings are hot in the same way that the amateur videos submitted to the community generated sites are hot…that almost tangible sexuality that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago.
If this entry has piqued your interest about access to sexy time for those with disabilities, scoot on over to Cory Silverberg’s Sex and Disabilities Resources for everything you need to know.
·> Bad, bad bisexual
I’d just like to take a moment and thank Tila Tequila for setting bisexuals back fifty thousand years. Tila Tequila is the star of MTV’s A Shot at Love, where 16 straight men and 16 lesbians compete for the key to her heart. I’m going to skip the deets of the show because the people over here break down the total train wreck more efficiently than I can at this moment.
I’m not here to complain about the alcohol fueled rampant violence or the apparent emotional manipulation the contests are subjected to. My beef is mostly with how she embodies and reinforces every misconception about bisexuals there ever was. Essentially Tila is a shitty bisexual.
Bisexual stereotypes go like this:
- Confused and indecisive, unable to choose between men or women (because, you know, everyone’s gotta choose).
- Hyper sexual or slutty, up for sex with anyone, anytime, anywhere.
- Serial daters, unable to commit.
- Just a phase before you realize you’re really gay.
- Doesn’t really exist.
- Tactic to get attention from straight guys.
Its like Tila has these stereotypes taped above her bed and every night before she goes to bed she prays that she can check off one or all boxes the following day. She kicks the show off by saying that shes not sure if she likes men or women (wait, aren’t you supposed to be into both?) but “realizes” that love isn’t about the gender, it’s about the person (as it should be). Confused and indecisive, check.
To help her suitors take her seriously, she tells them that she has to masturbate nine times a day to be satisfied. That coupled with her sex themed play rooms checks the hyper sexual box.
She follows that shit up by having full on sloppy make out sessions with contestants back to back, without a breather. I could almost let this one slide and chalk it up to reality televisions reliance on sexual tension rather than substance, but Tila makes a habit of kissing and grinding on her lesbian admirers in full view of the straight guys. Did I mention that Tila only likes lipstick lesbians? Pandering to the penis, check.
The whole show checks the serial dater, unable to commit box, and finally, for the first season Tila chose a boy to have a “shot at love” with, proving to some that bisexuality doesn’t exist or is just a phase on your way to straight or gay.
I know it was utterly stupid of me to be jazzercised for a bisexual MTV reality dating show, hoping against hope it could depict a search for love regardless of genitals.
·> Fashion for Sex Sake?
Gasps from the fashion elite as Gareth Pughs Fall 2008 collection strutted down the runway. He’s known for creating wearable sculptures meant to distort the human body beyond recognition by experimenting with form and volume with unconventional fabric choices like PVC inflated into voluminous coats, monochromatic squares, geometric shapes, meticulous tailoring, an unmatched ability to play with texture and gradients, and even human hair. His previous collections have tried to capture the mystique of Elizabethan collars, geometric shapes and now the urban warrior ready for nuclear winter.
This season onlookers called the collection a number of things but ultimately felt it was unwearable. The peeps over @ HeyBeUs even said that Gareth Pugh’s designs jump the fashion shark as “Its like claiming you’re a toilet paper designer, then making toilet paper out of steel wool”. This industry notion is furthered by the fact Pugh has not sold a single dress. BAH! I say.
Forget fashion for arts sake or using it as a medium to convey dreams, emotions and tell stories. Where fashion might have been artistic expression, the focus is now on creating a lifestyle brand … that is wearable and by extension, commercial.
The shift toward commercial fashion mirrors the transformation of sexual identities. Think of it this way… todays highly sought after personification of fashion emphasizes conformity, understated, calm, safe, neutral, conservative beauty and sexuality.
Its probably easier for people to imagine their sexual identity (or the person they might be fucking) as a incarnation of Jackie O, rather than the muse envisioned by Pugh or his predecessor Thierry Mugler – a hard edged, otherworldy, glamazon woman – a perfect blend of industrial and organic.
I’m not making an aesthetic comparison, but merely trying to show how fashion is conforming. If all we, the consumer, have to sample is a variety of conservative, then our tolerance and appetite for more avante guard, evocative stuff declines. I don’t need to tell you how this relates to your sex life and what kind of options you’ll have.
·> you are now tuned in
So uh, you all probably want a little back story on me and how I got here. Well I was plucked out of a college class by my then professor and now boss. In my senior year of college (2007) I decided to knock out some units by taking this virtually unknown class called “Sexuality and the Internet”. Now, I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it too — porn @ school! For units!!! But yeah, no. Surfing the net to check out the various ways people get their fuck on turned out to be a straight up gaggle of reading and writing that explored the social, psychological and educational aspects of sexuality and the internet and how the internet can be harnessed as a tool for social change.
Our final paper required we investigate an Internet issue, and me being me, I kept it raw and decided to look at the prevalence and severity of the online sexual solicitation of minors through Dateline’s ‘To Catch a Predator’ series. After some involved research and statistical analysis it looked as though Dateline might have misrepresented the frequency of the sexual solicitations they caught on camera. Now I’m not trying to say that young people are not solicited for sex online by adults, BUT most of us that have grown up during the Internet age know when someone asks “a/s/l” they’re sketching for ass and if you do not want, then gtfo and close the chat window. In other instances young people might be curious and reciprocate these solicitations, and sometimes the adult doing the solicitation thinks they’re roll playing with an adult because the young person is in an area they should not be. And sometimes, like nearly half of the time, teenagers were soliciting OTHER teenagers for sex. Who would have thought teens cruised for sex online? These little Dateline details are important as they use fear to manipulate emotions resulting in the censorship of online content to protect the children, and we don’t want that… well the censorship part.
So whats my point here? It pays to go to school and do your homework. As much as I was looking forward to languishing away after graduation sending out fifty-million resumes, working at a cutting edge nonprofit around STD/HIV prevention, reproductive health, relationship issues and, you guessed it, the internet is a better way to serve my debt to society.
·> first contact
Welcome to the SexINFO blog. I know I know – oh no, not another blog but hold up, this one is special, I promise. There will be no cross posting from the mainstream news or gossip blogs for the sake of snarky comments. This blog chronicles the antics of me, Maggie as I slash and burn through San Francisco and pontificate on life, culture, fashion, food, movies, video games and of course, the sex.
·> Yahoo! Techie Diva: Orgs set up Internet Hotlines like SexINFO
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/27286
By Gina Hughes, Techie Diva
Organizations set up Internet hotlines to reach teens
Tue Apr 29, 2008 7:00AM EDT
 Teens have constantly been warned about online predators, but only a few may know where to turn to seek help and advice privately. Organizations who specialize in helping abused teens are turning to the Web to reach a generation that feels more comfortable opening up online than on a phone line. Online hotlines are booming as a result, as organizations reach out to Generation Y through social networks, SMS, and instant messaging.
Earlier this month, the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN), the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization, launched a secure instant-messaging hotline to counsel young people too shy to pick up a phone. RAINN president and founder Scott Berkowitz, said young sexual assault victims are turning to insecure chat rooms, blogs, and social networking sites for help not realizing the dangers of such actions.
To combat this trend, RAINN partnered with McAffe to build its web-based hotline from the ground up, thus providing people with a secure and anonymous place where they can chat privately with trained operators. According to the site, the Online Hotline does not capture a user’s IP address, nor does it record transcripts of sessions.
Another organization who has seen much success online is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, who turned to social networks like MySpace and Facebook. According to an article in USA Today, the organization now receives 20,000 visitors per month from its MySpace page alone. “One might say that if the Internet were a phone line, our site would be ringing off the hook,” says John Draper, Lifeline manager.
And what about cell phones? Teens love their mobile phones, and those seeking information about sexually transmitted diseases can request advice via text alerts from SexInfoSF.org. The site was set up by the Internet Sexuality Information Services, who also runs a service at inSpot that gives STD carriers a way to alert their sex partners with anonymous eCards.
I’m sure there are plenty of other online hotlines out there, so if you know of any, share them in the comments below.
·> UNFoundation/ Vodafone Report Highlights SexINFO
Mobile Phones for Social Change
http://www.undispatch.com/archives/2008/05/mobile_phones_f.php
 The Vodafone Foundation and the United Nations Foundation released a new report on innovative uses of mobile technology by NGOs working to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. The report identifies emerging trends in “mobile activism” through 11 case studies, and highlights the results of a global survey of NGO usage of mobile technology.
Here’s a taste of some of the findings from three of the case studies:
Cell-Life, a non-governmental organization based in Cape Town, South Africa, created its “Aftercare” program to work with the public health system and its health workers to provide home-based care for HIV/AIDS patients receiving Anti-Retroviral Treatments. Each Aftercare worker is assigned to monitor 15 to 20 patients. The worker visits the patient in his or her home, and in a one on one session discusses the patient’s current treatment. Using their mobile phones for data capture, Aftercare workers record information about patient medical status, drug adherence, and other factors that may affect a patient’s ART therapy. Aftercare workers then relay this information via text message to a central Cell-Life database. The data sent via text message reaches the Cell-Life server, where a care manager uses a web-based system to access and monitor the incoming patient information. The manager can also respond to Aftercare workers’ questions and provide supplemental information to improve patient care. The information collected not only facilitates individual patient care, but is also used to build a database of information on the severity and prevalence of the South African AIDS epidemic in these regions.
More examples like this after the jump.
EpiSurveyor
In 2002, Dr. Joel Selanikio teamed up with computer scientist Rose Donna to form the DataDyne Group, a non-profit dedicated to increasing access to public health data through mobile software solutions. Inspired by an earlier Centers for Disease Control product called Epi Info, Selanikio created EpiSurveyor, a free, open source mobile data collection software tool. EpiSurveyor offers health data collection forms that can be downloaded at no cost and modified by anyone with basic computer skills.
Through the pilot, thirty provincial health supervisors in Zambia and Kenya were trained in how to use EpiSurveyor on Palm Zire handheld computers. The health officers then used EpiSurveyor to collect management data about public health clinics–such as medical supply quantities and levels of staff training. In both countries, officers went beyond the purpose of the pilot to gather additional health data as new needs arose. In Zambia, for example, the supplied PDAs and EpiSurveyor software were used by health officers to conduct a post-measles vaccination campaign coverage survey–the very first time that such a survey had been independently conducted by in-country staff using PDAs.
HOW IT WORKS: EpiSurveyor incorporates a Windows- based “Designer” forms creation application, and a Java-based engine that can run on personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, and soon, common mobile phones. Users start by downloading the software from the DataDyne.org website (www.datadyne.org). Then, using a desktop or laptop computer, they enter the health survey questions into the Designer program. The resulting form can then be published to a mobile device. For data that is collected via PDA or smart phone, once data is collected from the field the mobile device is synchronized with the computer. Data from multiple handsets can then be combined into a single data table for analysis.
And here in the United States
SexInfo
It was while standing in front of the Mission High School near her home in San Francisco, California that Deborah Levine, executive director of internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS-Inc.), a nonprofit she founded that develops “high-tech solutions for sexual health education,” conceived of a potential solution to a pressing public health problem.
Levine had recently been approached by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) to develop a website to address rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases among at-risk youth. In 2005, rates of gonorrhea among African-American youth, ages 18 to 25, had gone up over 100 percent, with African-American women being infected by the disease at 12 times the rate of American women of Caucasian descent. With 85 percent of the city’s youth owning a mobile phone, a text-based approach simply made sense.
ISIS hired HipCricket, Inc., a mobile marketing firm in Australia, to program a service it developed known as SexInfo. Next came the task of working with mobile operators to provide mobile phone subscribers with access to the service. HipCricket offered to let ISIS-Inc use its five-digit ’short code’ during the project’s
start-up phase. Levine was then able to work through an aggregator in the United States to obtain the short code (61827) now being used to access SexInfo.
During the first 25 weeks of the project (April–October 2006), 4,500 individuals accessed the service, with 2,500 taking the steps to retrieve content and referrals. The top three messages accessed were: “What 2 do if ur condom broke,: “2 find out about STDs” and “if u think ur pregnant.”
Eight more case studies are examined in the report. And be sure to check out our interview with report co-author Katrin Verclas.
Posted by Mark Leon Goldberg at 9:34 AM
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