Author: Brian

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1874372,00.html

The cast of the scandal in Portland, Ore., has a certain ring to it: Sam Adams. Bob Ball. Beau Breedlove and his dog Lolita … “Everyone has porn names!” says Mark Wiener with a laugh. “Until yesterday, it had never occurred to me that the worst offending name was mine.” Wiener (pronounced Wee-ner) is one of Oregon’s most influential political consultants and a former — and now disheartened — campaign adviser to the protagonist in this political soap opera. That would be Sam Adams, the new mayor of Portland and the first openly gay man to lead a major American city. Then there’s Bob Ball, an openly gay local real estate developer who once had mayoral ambitions himself. In 2007, Ball hinted that Adams’ mentoring relationship with a former legislative intern, Beau Breedlove (now 21), was, in fact, a sexual one that had begun when the young man was just 17. (See the top 10 scandals of 2008.)
Adams, a city commissioner at the time, denied the charges vigorously, and his supporters, including Wiener, rallied to his support. Ball’s charges were shouted down as “sleazy” and a “smear.” Then Adams effectively won the mayor’s office with a landslide victory in the primaries last May, making the liberal city of Portland even prouder of its liberalism.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-21/tech/supreme.court.reject_1_supreme-court-child-online-protection-act-high-court?_s=PM:TECH

The Supreme Court has blocked further consideration of a federal law designed to keep sexual material from underage users of the Web.

The justices without comment Wednesday rejected an appeal from the federal government to reinstate the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), passed by Congress in 1998. The high court and subsequent federal courts said the law — which has never taken effect — had serious free speech problems.

The Bush administration was a strong supporter of the law and the Justice Department led the fight in court to revive it.

The justices issued their ruling a day after all nine were on hand for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor also attended the ceremony.

The case tested the free speech rights of adults against the power of Congress to control Internet commerce. The Supreme Court twice ruled against COPA, arguing that it represented government censorship rather than lawful regulation of adult-themed pornography businesses. The law would have prevented private businesses from creating and distributing “harmful” content that minors could access on the Internet.

Free speech advocates said adults would be barred access to otherwise legal material and that parental-control devices and various filtering technology are less intrusive ways to protect children.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871903,00.html

You have built an empire by marketing a liberal view of sexuality. Is there anything in your life that you are conservative about? Beth Nolcox, NEW YORK CITY
Well, yes. I was raised in a very traditional home, and I’m still a very traditional fellow. My problem is the labels of conservative and liberal don’t usually work very well for me. I’m not a guy, for example, who believes in political correctness. I think people ought to be people and shouldn’t be so concerned with the fact that their neighbors are different than they are.
How much have views of sex changed since you started Playboy? Jeff Wolman SILVER SPRING, MD.
I think sex in America has changed dramatically, and young people don’t have any real notion as to how much. When I first published Playboy, nice young people did not live together before they got married. Having a baby out of wedlock was a scandal that drove some people to suicide. Oral sex was illegal. Playboy played a major part in changing all that.
How do you feel about Proposition 8? Do you feel it is fair to treat gay people as second-class citizens? Richard Meyer, SAN FRANCISCO
I believe gays should have the same rights as everybody else, and they should have the right to marry. We have a Constitution to protect us against mob rule. If we simply went by what is popular, black men probably wouldn’t have equal rights.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/09/us-perezhilton-idUSN0842540220080409
That’s evident enough if you’re one of the millions of mostly twentysomething females who make his salacious salon for celebrity gossip a daily destination. Slowly but surely, a slicker, trimmer Perez is replacing the bloated, scruffy version that first rose to fame as Hollywood’s favorite online gadfly.

“This summer I want to frickin’ jog shirtless in Malibu by the Fourth of July,” Hilton, 30, announced in a video on PerezHilton.com (www.perezhilton.com).

But Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, is whipping more than just his body into shape; his brand also seems to be undergoing a subtle transformation.

He made his jogging goal public on a recently added video component to his site, which began running advertising this week. The so-called “queen of all media” also has been logging plenty of TV time lately, making his debut on MTV’s “TRL” on Monday; he also has his own occasional series of branded specials on sister network VH1; and he is set to make a cameo on “Family Guy” next season.

By DAVID TULLER
SAN FRANCISCO — Steve, a health care worker in his 30s, had been told more than once that he had been exposed to a sexually transmitted infection. So when it happened again, he was not upset — even though this time he learned about it through an anonymous online postcard, e-mailed by a man with whom he had had sex.

“What was important was that I was being notified that there was a possibility that I may have been exposed to syphilis,” said Steve, who asked that his last name be withheld to protect his privacy.

The Internet has made it much easier to connect for sexual hookups. In response, public health officials have been exploring ways to harness the online world for conducting safe-sex education and preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases by alerting people exposed to them.

The e-card, which allows the sender to select the disease involved and includes links to public health sites and services, is part of that strategy.

“Notifying the person exposed to a sexually transmitted infection is the critical piece in preventing further spread,” said Dr. Susan Blank, New York City’s assistant health commissioner for sexually transmitted disease. “And as the reach of the Internet expands for use in finding instant sex partners, we’re using that technology as part of the solution.”

Along with 10 other cities and 10 states, New York City has been working with inSPOT, the online partner notification system through which Steve, in San Francisco, received his syphilis e-card.

The system was developed in 2004 by Internet Sexuality Information Services, a nonprofit agency in Oakland, Calif., with the support of health officials in San Francisco. Deb Levine, the agency’s executive director, said two factors in San Francisco led to the idea: the rise in Internet use among men who have sex with men, and an increase in syphilis among that group.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117969361?refCatId=1019&query=sexuality+on+tv+heats+up-kinda

The film channel IFC devotes four consecutive nights this week to “Indie Sex,” a documentary whose insights reinforce the notion that while American filmmakers are swell at blowing things up, since the blockbuster mentality took over they have lagged well behind Europe in their boldness regarding sexuality.
Television’s version of the independent sphere, however, appears to be gradually challenging this puritanical streak — a rebellion, perhaps, against the censorious attitude that transformed a fleeting glimpse of a breast during the Super Bowl into a cultural holy war.

Given the robust income of the porn industry, the public’s healthy appetite for sex is no surprise . For the most part, though, mainstream movies and broadcast television have pushed more freely ahead in violence and language than in sexuality, a fact that is underscored by the explosion of crime-oriented primetime dramas and the lucrative cinematic genre dubbed “torture porn.”

Showtime and HBO , however, are advancing into this void — the former with “The Tudors,” an Elizabethan serial more notable for its sexual cavorting than court intrigue; to be followed in August by “Californication,” which stars David Duchovny as a writer who takes solace from a busted relationship in the arms, thighs and bosoms of compliant women.

As for HBO, the more powerful pay service has witnessed the formidable pushback that unflinching sexuality can trigger in the squirmy response at the TV critics’ summer tour to the channel’s upcoming series “Tell Me You Love Me.” A dramatic look at various couples, the sex scenes are graphic enough to have provoked speculation among the scribes as to whether they were real or simulated (it’s the latter). Then again, that alarm shouldn’t be taken too seriously, inasmuch as some of the critics give the impression they haven’t gotten laid since the Reagan administration.

SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly 14,000 donors — including homemakers, priests and a former member of the Los Angeles Dodgers — poured millions of dollars into the last two weeks of the campaign to pass Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in California. According to a campaign finance report made public on Monday, in all, both sides spent more than $83 million.

The report came just days after supporters of the ballot measure lost a suit in Federal District Court in Sacramento that sought to prevent the names of donors from being revealed. The suit argued that past disclosures had led to donors’ receiving harassing e-mail, death threats and boycotts of businesses. The court said the release of the names was particularly important in such expensive campaigns.

Frank Schubert, campaign manager for Protect Marriage, the leading group behind Proposition 8, said he had received no reports of harassment on Monday.

A summary report of opponents’ donations, meanwhile, showed the losing side spent $43.1 million. A more detailed report of those names — which ran some 7,600 pages — was still being formatted by the office of the California secretary of state.

The report on the ban’s supporters, which covered the closing days of the campaign, shows a wide variety of backers. They include Jeff Kent, the recently retired second baseman who donated $15,000, and a janitor from Cupertino, Calif., who donated $99.

Carrying signs with slogans like “Just NOT Married” and red heart-shaped balloons, more than 100 people held a rally outside the Manhattan Marriage Bureau on Thursday morning to demand that New York State extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The protest coincided with, but was not formally part of, the 12th annual Freedom to Marry Week, a series of events throughout the United States intended to draw attention to marriage laws.

The protest was organized by two groups, Marriage Equality New York, part of Marriage Equality USA, and Join the Impact.

The protesters gathered outside the new Manhattan Marriage Bureau, at 141 Worth Street, near Centre Street, but their ire was really more directed at the state government than at the city government. New York City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, supports same-sex marriage rights, as does the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who is openly gay. But in Albany, even though the Democrats seized control of the State Legislature last fall and also control the governor’s mansion, the movement for same-sex marriage has stalled.

Malcolm A. Smith, the leader of the Senate’s new Democratic majority, recently suggested that a vote on same-sex marriage this year was unlikely; the Democrats are fearful of losing their new — and razor-thin — majority by tackling controversial social issues.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/01/business/fi-abcfamily1

Disney executives say the drama and similar shows are in sync with the realities facing many American families. Critics say such programs don’t belong on a channel with the word ‘family’ in its name.

February 01, 2009|Meg James and Dawn C. Chmielewski
The TV series “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” opens with a 15-year-old girl coming home from band practice, reaching into her French horn case and pulling out a home pregnancy test. Her horrified look confirms the results.

No less startled are some parents whose children watch the ABC Family cable program that revolves around the sex lives of high school students. The titillating themes, in their view, are out of place on a channel with the word “family” in its name — especially given the chaste image of its owner, Walt Disney Co.

But “Secret Life” has become ABC Family’s biggest hit and one of the most popular shows on cable, drawing an average 3.8 million viewers an episode. With depictions of teens rolling out of bed, a father peppering his daughters with questions about their sex lives at the dinner table, and a troubled boy revealing that he had been molested by his father, “Secret Life” represents a coming of age for a channel founded by evangelist Pat Robertson to spread the Gospel.

Welcome to Disney’s new take on the American family.

Along with shows such as “Greek,” set in the belly-shots-and-wet-T-shirts world of college fraternities and sororities, and “Lincoln Heights,” a drama about growing up fast in a crime-ridden Los Angeles neighborhood, Disney says it has reshaped ABC Family into a channel more in sync with the realities and anxieties facing many American families and teenagers.

http://tothecenter.com/news.php?readmore=12508

Unmotivated to shovel another cent into the Democratic National Committee’s money pit, Americablog founders John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay want Democrats to withhold their donations until gay rights improve.

The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give” campaign, organized by Americablog.com, also singles out Organizing for America and the Obama administration itself for giving LGBT Americans lip service about their civil rights.

“A year ago, the LGBT community, our families, friends and allies across the country were elated by the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. We poured our hearts and wallets out to elect a Democratic president and Congress,” the pledge reads. “Over the past year our joy has turned to frustration as President Obama and the Democratic Party have moved away from their campaign commitments to gay and lesbian Americans.”

Cosponsored by activists Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile and David Mixner – among others – the pledge at Gay.Americablog.com features a 25-point list comparing candidate Obama’s “fierce” advocacy for gay rights to his relative inaction.

Besides his administration’s mismanagement of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and the Defense of Marriage Act, the list also takes Obama to task for his refusal to reestablish the White House Office of LGBT Outreach and implying he will not repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” until the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over.