San Francisco Bay Guardian

I was paging through my neon-orange-and-yellow copy of Tristan Taormino's Feminist Porn Book and generally feeling good about International Women's Day when I discovered that gah! I totally spaced and missed out on a really important porn happening that is sweeping the country: handsome wackjob Craig Gross' "Porn Kills" tour!

The comely Gross has been motoring about visiting the country's third tier cities in -- yes! -- a hearse, enlisting pro-Jesus spoken word poets and Christian video artists who love frosted flakes to spread the word that porn is threatening the collapse of our families. In a hip way, with skulls and stuff.

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Having sex for money can change the dimensions of the kinds of acts you're willing to explore. That's a fact in a porno landscape that rewards greater physical punishment with greater paychecks (as it should.) But if BDSM porn performers aren't doing it all purely for their own sexual gratification, how do we define consent? Where does pushing boundaries become abuse? The question seems really important, especially for those who would defend the existence of BDSM porn to dissenters of all stripes. 

My article in this week's paper that explored the question of the definition of consent for for-profit BDSM porn (although really, the arguments are the same for all kinds of sex work) was too short. Hey, save trees and all that. But performer Maxine Holloway pushed beyond the limited ink I could give to her comments to expand on her thoughts in an essay posted to her blog last night. Read more »

There are few things that San Franciscans love more than Thin Mints, and local Girl Scouts found out what those were on Sunday when a troop conviniently posted up in front of the deceased Diesel store at Castro and Market. The whippersnappers paid witness not only to another nude-y demonstration against the city's new ban on public nudity, but also to said demonstration's infiltration by dapper members (ahem) of local porn outfit Naked Sword [as Castro Biscuit reported.] They're making a send-up of the nudity ban starring an ambitious politician, surname: Cox. Wink. Read more »

She wears a Guess Collection spotted lynx coat, Manolo Blahnik boots, Isabel Marant dress, La Perla lingerie. She has to figure out how to have sex with a quadriplegic. She is gentle, the most sweet. The Christeene Vale that stars in the "San Francisco" segment of Fourplay, a collection of sex-themed shorts that will screen in part at Other Cinema's "Eros" lineup at Artist's Television Access on Sat/16 is not the same filthy drag-terror I remember slapping and dredging her sweaty stomach over the faces of other front row admirers at her Public Works appearance last year. 

In part, this is due to the fact that in Fourplay Vale (or rather, Paul Soileau, her real world alter ego) is interpreting the cross-dressing SF sex worker who is sitting across the table from me in a SoMa cafe. Her name is Chloe, and she is explaining to me why her job is a lot like being a therapist. Read more »