Bettie Page spanking paddle, UK porn censorshop and Free the Nipple

It's been a busy week, so I will recap my writing and have more for you this weekend.



I wrote a gift guide for TueNight (with different items than my Philadelphia City Paper sexy gift guide) and it includes the Bettie Page paddle above, for sale at Chicago's Early to Bed!

This week's sex column is on the recent UK porn rules, entitled, "Niche porn films face censorship fight in Britian" (my working title was "No squirting please, we're British" since female ejaculation is banned). I interviewed feminist pornographer Petra Joy. These new rules prompted today's face-sitting protest in London. Below image is by Petra Joy to protest these new rules.



For Time.com, I wrote "Free the Nipple! The Problem With How We Think About Breasts", about the new film Free the Nipple and why nipples deserve to be free, but not put on a maternal pedestal.

The naked lady beat: me on Kim Kardashian's ass and other body parts in Paper magazine

"Kim Kardashian Butt Fame" is what shows up in the URL of my latest Time.com article, "I Can’t Help But Admire Kim Kardashian’s Devotion to Staying Famous", about her enduring popularity, flaunting of her sexuality and those glossy, gorgeous photos in Paper magazine. Apparently, I'm the go to girl for naked lady coverage, as I was asked to comment on Kim based on my previous piece, "Jennifer Lawrence's Breasts Aren't Sending Mixed Messages." That one I cold pitched them, and at the bottom of both pieces is more information about pitching them, for the writers reading this.

photo by Jean-Paul Goude for Paper

I wrote about Jennifer Lawrence's breasts, nudity, consent and owning our stories for TIME

For TIME Ideas, I wrote "Jennifer Lawrence's Breasts Aren't Sending Mixed Messages." I saw a few reactions on Twitter saying something to the effect of "breasts can't send messages." Well, according to the piece I was responding to, they can, and women have to pick shameful or salacious. I disagree.

Time magazine owns its homophobic past

Props to Time for not only thoughtfully reviewing Milk (which I haven't seen yet, but plan to Sunday), stating that "Harvey Milk is the gay Joan of Arc," (which I haven't seen yet) but for owning its own homophobic past:

And when a film did take a compassionate approach to homosexuality, the mainstream press could pounce on it with cavalier ignorance and captious contempt. A review of the British drama Victim, about a barrister fighting the law that made homosexuality a criminal offense, took offense at the movie's "implicit approval of homosexuality as a practice. ... Nowhere does the film suggest that homosexuality is a serious (but often curable) neurosis that attacks the biological basis of life itself. 'I can't help the way I am,' says one of the sodomites in this movie. 'Nature played me a dirty trick.' And the scriptwriters, whose psychiatric information is clearly coeval with the statute they dispute, accept this sick-silly self-delusion as a medical fact." The review, headlined, "A Plea for Perversion?", appeared in the Feb. 23, 1962, issue of TIME magazine.

The medical nonsense spouted here — which was also the stated position of the American Psychiatric Association — underlined a conformist culture's fear of the Other. They're different. They dress and talk funny. They're a threat to our spouses and our kids. The arguments against homosexuals, like those against blacks, meant to turn irrational suspicions into punitive legislation. To counter the know-nothing majority, members of the afflicted minority needed a righteous, urgent spokesman. Blacks had MLK — Martin Luther King, Jr. Gays had MiLK — Harvey Milk.

And from the review:

Perhaps the least homosexual actor around, Penn here reins in his Method bluster to locate the sweetness and vulnerability beneath Milk's assured persona. He becomes this character — surely far from his experience — with no italicizing, no condescension, no sweat. This isn't an impersonation, it's an inhabiting.

In any early scene, Harvey shares a long, loving kiss with his future lover, Scott Smith (James Franco in a finely tuned turn). The kiss is director Gus Van Sant's declaration that, yes, this will be a gay movie. But there's no shock value, except in the tenderness of the passion — when was the last time you saw a great movie kiss?