Calling UK sex-"poxes"...

New activist venture....

The Pleasure Salon is being created to build community, allowing sex-positive activists to cross-pollinate. We are inviting organisers, activists, pioneers and the movers and groovers of the BDSM, swinger, alternative gender, LGBT, sex-activist, nudist, sex-magic, polyamory, Pagan, radical faerie, tantra, dark odyssey, sex-blogger, porn, pervert and sex-worker communities. Through networking and learning about each other, The Pleasure Salon hopes to act as a sex-positive think tank and eventually create a sex-positive world. It is a place for the open exchange of ideas and sensual expression.

Pleasure Salons will take place on the second Wednesday in each month, starting in March 2008. They will be in Amora, the Erotic Museum 13 Coventry Street just next to Piccadilly Circus from 7pm to 9pm.

Each month will have a speaker - one of us who has something exciting to share, or an expert to advise us on how to lobby, influence the media, politicians, and society. The talk will just be for 20 minutes with ten minutes for questions and then a short news update. After that it will be networking. There is a bar and we will charge a nominal £2 to cover costs.

The Pleasure Salon is replacing the Sexual Freedom Conference and will hopefully continue to improve on it, both in enjoyment and effectiveness.

Suzanne Noble has attended the Pleasure Salons in New York and testifies that they are most empowering, and we start one in London with their blessing.

Suzanne, Tuppy, Cat

Well, I'm excited!

Update on the UK 'extreme pornography' ban

Thanks to verte for the introduction. Here’s a brief-as-possible summary of the current status of the British government’s proposals to ban the possession of “extreme pornography”.

These proposals have been included as Part Six of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007, which is due for its second reading in the House of Commons on 8 October. If the bill is passed as is, people will be at risk of entry on the Sex Offenders’ Register, and up to three years in jail, just for owning an “extreme image”.

As for what on earth an “extreme image” might be, the bill has become even vaguer on this subject since the consultation stage. It states:

‘An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following—
(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.’

Categories c and d are not relevant to consensual sexual activity in the SM community. However, a and b are likely to have extremely serious consequences. No distinction is made between images of real or staged sexual violence, and it appears not to have entered the heads of the drafters that there could be any distinction between sexual assault and consensual rough play.

A rigorous interpretation of the law could make pictures of everything from breathplay to fisting illegal. A really aggressive interpretation could make even images of vanilla sex without a condom illegal, as the participants could contract a life-threatening disease. How the law is interpreted will depend entirely on the investigating authorities.

Most ridiculously of all, it will become illegal to “extract an [extreme pornographic] image” from a “classified work”. This means that you can still buy James Bond: Casino Royale from WHSmiths, but if you take a still from the ball-busting scene you will be a violent pornographer!

Now the proposals are at bill stage, the government has also abandoned the emotive waffle about ‘protecting’ women and children that characterized the earlier stages of the process. Instead, in note 803 to the bill, they specifically refer to the footage in the Spanner case, describing it as ‘the type of activity covered by the offence’. Such material, it says, is ‘abhorrent to most people’.

The UK government, which has prided itself on its support of gay rights, is using one of the most notorious recent miscarriages of justice against gay people as a foundation stone for a new wave of sexual repression. They are doing so in the name of ‘protecting’ women, even though they have not bothered to produce a single concrete example of how women or anyone else will be served by a law that eradicates the distinction between actual sexual assault and photos of kinky fun.

To find out more about the Backlash campaign, visit www.backlash-uk.org.uk

BDSM Intolerance

Mz Raven from Informed Consent kindly gave me permission to re-post her story here:

I've decided to make my reply to a thread currently running on the boards, into a personal blog, but what I want is for people to think before making any sort or reply/response or action.

The subject running is about being “outed” and the consequences of this, there is one reply on the boards which is very well written and precise pointing out the pro's and cons of being outed or even outing yourself. But I feel this is now something I have grounds to comment upon. Yes ok, so you decide to “come clean” to a few people and you relay the basic dynamics of what BDSM is about to you.

Out of experience I can tell you that you will always get one of three responses, those that stand there, raise one eyebrow and go “hmmmmmmmm .. really?” .. or you will get, “errrrrrrrrr .. whats that then?” .. or the one that is most common is, “are you weird or what?” the last kind of response is what happens when people have a lack of understanding and then its down to you as the individual to explain yourself. (why explain yourself you may ask) basically if you don't the media profiles of all of us living this lifestyle turns many peoples minds towards the worse scenarios, ie that we are all deviant freaks that slaughter new born lambs before having wild sex in its offal. Not really the sort of thing that you want others to believe really.

Ok, so there are a lot of plus sides to being honest and open about who and what you are/like doing. But ….. from someone that knows the wrath the of ignorant others .. its really not worth taking the risk … what we all do is ALWAYS going to be considered weird, freakish, abnormal ect .. its not the norm to want to inflict pain or to receive it .. its not the norm to suspend your loved one from beams and set about them with a single tail, basically what we all do and live is not NORMAL in the regular nilla mundane capitalistic world we have to live in.

What I will go ahead to tell you all now is my own personal experience of being honest with people that I thought were friends .. It still upsets me to this day what myself and my family and close friends had to deal with.

So after telling my next door neighbours how I chose to live was first met with the “hmmmmmmmm really?” response .. they asked lots of questions and they seemed to gain a certain amount of understanding of who and what I am about .. no problem so far, then .. my feelings at that point were relief and comfort in knowing I was accepted for ME not WHAT. So cutting a very long story short these people over a period of a couple of months started to change their attitude towards me, they stopped popping in for coffee, they ignored me, their kids stopped talking/playing with mine. Well, ok, fair enough .. life was quiet so I didn't really allow myself to get too worked up about it all .. live and let live is my motto.

Well, that was until one Monday morning at 8am when a team of 10 police officers stood on my doorstep telling me that my house was going to be searched looking for evidence of a crime that I had “supposedly” committed. I was read my rights and arrested on suspicion of drugging and raping my next door neighbour!

My house was turned over by a bunch of overweight CID officers and a few plain clothes coppers, rifling through not only my private items but my childrens as well. They took great delight in trying to humiliate me with all manner of unnecessary questions when finding “the Kit” (and lets just say there's a lot of it Again cutting out a lot of the story here I was hauled down to the police station and after being locked in a cell for a period of time I was then questioned and “evidence” placed in front of me along with the “victims” statement. As previously mentioned it came about that I had gone into their home and drugged her coffee with amphetamines until the point she passed out, then I was supposed to have tied her down and raped her then took photos of her in said position. Okaaaaaayyyyy …… shock and revulsion hits home big time and a multitude of questions of my own… but at that point I was the criminal and had no grounds to ask anything of anyone (or so I was made to feel).

Basically these people had worked out that if they made enough fuss and made themselves victims of a crime they could get what they wanted from the state. They were a family living on benefits in a home that was too small for their needs, they were in a mountain of debt that they could not keep under control, he was a junkie she was a manic depressive. So they concocted a story so extreme, but with a self confessed pervert living next door what an opportunity to not to miss. Here was there get out clause of the avoiding bailiffs and court orders ect. A new life .. a new start with new names. Sounds great doesn't it .. and don't we all wish at times during our lives that we could all do this?

These people (who I say again, I considered to be friends) falsified evidence (including said mentioned photos, which I supposedly posted through there door to intimidate them) they made my life hell, I couldn't even walk 200 yards to the local shop without having abuse screamed at me or my kids, phone calls of people calling me a diseased freak .. people I have known for many years crossing the street to avoid being on the same path as me, the local neighbourhood watch focused solely on my house of ill repute, my kids teased, tormented and bullied at school and all through a couple of peoples SICK and WARPED minds to get what they wanted.

Well after 9 months of living a hell on earth, everything was dropped, there was no physical evidence against me what so ever, (surprise surprise!) they couldn't find my finger prints on the photos that I had allegedly sent, there was no drugs in my home, there was NONE of her DNA on any piece of my equipment, there was NONE of my DNA on or about her body. The case and all charges where then subsequently dropped. The police acknowledged that they concocted this story just because they could, no other reason than to get what they wanted without having to do anything for themselves. Nightmare over! Or was it? NO .. I still have to live here with everyone still whispering behind my back, those that did this to me are now living somewhere in bliss with everything they wanted. They know what they did was wrong but they don't care, they carry no guilt over what they did, they didn't care what lives they ruined on their own paths to get what they wanted from me .. so in retrospect. They have won. I cant prosecute them the police wont do anything to them and all because of the money needed to bring about charges upon them. So unless someone wants to donate in the region of £100K to me, these people will walk free and get away with everything.

What I will say though is throughout this growing acceptance of O/our chosen lifestyle there are many many like myself who have grown complacent with what we do, believing that everyone is going to be “OK” with us, not feeling the need to hide ourselves away behind closed doors because we want to be honest and open and spread the word to make others become understanding of what we are all about. Sorry people but life isn't as kind as that .. yes, you are going to get those that accept you but you will also find those that WON'T and refuse to believe that what we do is perfectly acceptable.. these people don't want to know .. they don't want to understand .. they don't want us upsetting there quiet nilla way of life where the missionary position is the best way. There are many details that I have purposely omitted from this blog and I am more than happy to divulge more details if its requested.

Just take this as a kind warning from someone that knows that being open and honest isn't always the best path to chose. Think very carefully before disclosing anything private about yourself or your partner, you might find yourself the victim of a scenario that you have no control over. Don't let my hell become yours. It's not a nice place to be.

You know, I hope some anti-BDSMers read this and re-think their prejudices against women who choose lifestyles they look down on.