October 2008

Image from the Pirates collection at Agent Provocateur.

A while back I pointed you to the jaw-droppingly decadent Season of the Witch campaign (and its nipplelicious Easter eggs) over at heady lingerie retailer Agent Provocateur. I’m excited to tell you that they’re currently featuring a Witches collection and a Pirates collection — but what’s more, their HOT “Pirates” choose your own adventure online video experience is not to be missed. Especially if you like sexy girls in (and out of) incredible lingerie acting all swaggery and taking each other prisoner at sword point, etc… Gawd, it’s hot in there.

This *somehow* came from an internet rabbit hole I went down when I discovered the New York FIT (The Fashion Institute of Technology) museum exhibit Gothic: Dark Glamour (September 5, 2008 through February 21, 2009), described as:

“The dark glamour of the gothic has made it perversely attractive to many designers,” said Dr. Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at FIT and curator of this exhibition. “John Galliano told me that he saw the ‘Gothic girl’ as ‘edgy and cool, vampy and mysterious,’ while Rick Owens said that whenever he saw goth kids, he felt as though they were his children. But other designers, such as Olivier Theyskens and Ann Demeulemeester, reject the gothic label, although they acknowledge that their work may display a certain dark romanticism.”

An introductory gallery focuses on the origins of gothic style, which have inspired both designers and goths. The Victorian cult of mourning, for example, is illustrated by actual mourning dresses, veils, and momento mori jewelry. The main gallery space is designed as a labyrinth, featuring iconic themes such as Night, with black evening dresses; the Ruined Castle, with fashion inspired by gothic images of the Dark Ages, ruins, and fragments; and the Laboratory, where futuristic fashion “monsters” are created. Other themes include Veils and Masks, Batcave, and the Haunted Palace – the last of which draws on Edgar Allan Poe’s architectural metaphor for a disturbed mind.

The online exhibit is stunning (sound alert; Flash site). It features the work of one modern designer whose work I would pretty much do anything to own a single piece of — the amazing Kambriel. My two favorite pieces of hers that I want SO badly are this (above, in the FIT exhibition) and this.

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Image of vintage pinup Nancy “Kitty” Carroll via carbonated, from their incredible vintage Halloween collection.

The New Yorker has a fabulous article by Margaret Talbot called Red Sex, Blue Sex which explores why so many evangelical teenagers become pregnant. It’s really creepy and difficult to stop reading once you’ve started. There could be a resounding “I told you so” clanging through our collective brains when reading about the realities of teens 13-17 who don’t use contraception when they break their abstinence pledges (with lots of pregnancies and a skyrocketing rate of STD’s). But the article posits an interesting twist: the teen girl (Shelby Knox) crusading with the help of her conservative Republican parents for comprehensive sex education in schools in Texas. It just tells me that when it comes to sex ed, there shouldn’t be any divisiveness here. But still, the practices are often appalling, as Talbot reports that the “sexual debut” of young white evangelical girls is typically at age 16. Snip:

(…) Last year, Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published a startling book called “Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers,” and he is working on a follow-up that includes a section titled “Red Sex, Blue Sex.” His findings are drawn from a national survey that Regnerus and his colleagues conducted of some thirty-four hundred thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds, and from a comprehensive government study of adolescent health known as Add Health. Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage. (Only half of mainline Protestants, and a quarter of Jews, say that they believe in abstinence.) Moreover, among the major religious groups, evangelical virgins are the least likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable, and the most likely to believe that having sex will cause their partners to lose respect for them. (Jews most often cite pleasure as a reason to have sex, and say that an unplanned pregnancy would be an embarrassment.) But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception. This could be because evangelicals are also among the most likely to believe that using contraception will send the message that they are looking for sex. It could also be because many evangelicals are steeped in the abstinence movement’s warnings that condoms won’t actually protect them from pregnancy or venereal disease. More provocatively, Regnerus found that only half of sexually active teen-agers who say that they seek guidance from God or the Scriptures when making a tough decision report using contraception every time. By contrast, sixty-nine per cent of sexually active youth who say that they most often follow the counsel of a parent or another trusted adult consistently use protection.

The gulf between sexual belief and sexual behavior becomes apparent, too, when you look at the outcomes of abstinence-pledge movements. Nationwide, according to a 2001 estimate, some two and a half million people have taken a pledge to remain celibate until marriage. Usually, they do so under the auspices of movements such as True Love Waits or the Silver Ring Thing. Sometimes, they make their vows at big rallies featuring Christian pop stars and laser light shows, or at purity balls, where girls in frothy dresses exchange rings with their fathers, who vow to help them remain virgins until the day they marry. More than half of those who take such pledges—which, unlike abstinence-only classes in public schools, are explicitly Christian—end up having sex before marriage, and not usually with their future spouse. (…read more, newyorker.com, thanks Praemedia, via MetaFilter)

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Image “Scream” by billybofh, also seen in the Scream Queens — Beautiful Horror Flickr pool.

Here are a few distractions to get you in the mood for tonight… Check out the super creepy nude photography of ciphotodesign (Javier S. Sanudo). Homemade Sex Toys tells you a million different ways you can “ride the orange pony” (pumpkin sex, eeep!) I really thought Bella Vendetta’s graveyard set at Fleshbot was the sexiest thing they’ve posted about Halloween yet. Lux also hit the mark with this short roundup of Halloween-appropriate porn films. For Flickr members who want some work-safe Halloween movie nerd distraction today, check out the Name That Film pool, which is really hopping with horror movie goodness right now (thanks, Brad!)

If you think the Fantasy Fest 2008 bodypainting pics by ErosArtists (like the one below from this set) are amusing, look at more on their site — the whole gallery is huge and boob-tastic.

Image by ErosArtists.

And, also via Lux, the really really bad Muffy the Vampire Layer:

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An image live from the laboratory, via my Ocean.

A little while back I was contacted by a rep from Lifestyles condoms about their new non-latex condom, the SKYN. Always skeptical but ever on a quest to find non-latex solutions, I wrote them back and asked for a few samples. I know so many people with latex allergies, and almost weekly I get queries from readers about non-latex alternatives for condoms. Usually I suggest what everyone’s been offering as an alternate: polyurethane has been the most common non-latex condom material available to consumers. The excellent Durex Avanti has always been the answer of sex educators across the nation. It’s latex-rubber free and so as a sex toy material it can handle getting oil on it; latex-rubber (what most condoms are made of) deteriorates quickly when oil touches it, making it break pretty quickly. If you want to see how fast, watch my “Crisco is not lube” video for a pretty explosive demonstration. The drawback to polyurethane is that it isn’t as stretchy/flexible as latex so you’ll want to use plenty of water-based lube, and this makes polyurethane condoms an unfortunate “one size fits some” situation. If you’re bigger, smaller or not shaped like the condom, it can be uncomfortable, or not a solution, and I’ve heard from uncircumcised guys that they feel discomfort (feeling the inflexible “burn” if you will). I never recommend animal skin condoms because, ew, and they also do not adequately protect against virus transmission.

So last night I got my hands on a test bunny. Or, maybe he got his hands on me. But first, I did some solo research. The Lifestyles Skyns are made from polyisoprene. This is the latex-free pure form of rubber; however in this case, Lifestyles is making a synthetic version so no trees are harmed to make their condoms. Yay for the greening of weenies! But on a more serious note, or actually what turned out to be less serious but entertaining to my date nonetheless, I wanted to see how the Skyns stood up to oil.

My friend just happened to have a box of Lifestyles Ultrathins on hand; a great latex condom if ever there was one, it’s one of my faves because it’s *really* thin and clear, so I can see what I’m playing with if you get my meaning. I also really, really love the Pleasure Plus (great for uncircumcised guys) and my staple, the Crown Skinless Skin. I opened an Ultrathin, rolled it about two inches down my fingers, and put the open end in my mouth — and blew it up like a balloon. It had that yucky condom flavor we all know and love. I did the same thing with the Skyn. It did not have a yucky condom flavor at all. It didn’t taste yummy like dim sum or sexy boy toy, but it tasted a LOT better than the latex condom. After the latex, it almost even tasted kind of sweet.

I blew it up to a bit bigger than the Ultrathin. It was sturdy and flexible. Then I went in the pantry and came out with a bottle of corn oil. I put the Ultrathin under my arm, held it in place, and put oil on my fingers and rubbed. After a bit, it popped. Next I did the same thing with the Skyn. I rubbed. I squeezed it tighter, and rubbed. I added more oil. Finally, it popped.

Granted, these are far, far from clinical study conditions. But the difference was noticeable — though it does mean that even while the Skyn is non-latex, oil WILL break the condom. Play with caution, dear readers.

And in the field? My bunny was well behaved. I put one on him, and then the other. Conclusion? He said they felt about the same as each other; still thinner feeling than any other condom he’d tried. As for me, I thought the Skyn felt a lot smoother during skin to skin contact, and again, it sure tasted a lot better than the Ultrathin.

Frankly, I think Lifestyles has made a fucking amazing breakthrough for fucking. It’s the best non-latex alternative out there, and one of the best condoms on the market, period. Which means this is a great time for safer sex. Thank you, Lifestyles.

(I received nothing but a box of condoms from this company; I am not endorsed nor do I have any affiliation with Lifestyles Condoms, in any way. This is a loving PSA.)

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Image by Mr. Love.

Nope, no contest. And maybe that’s okay… Turns out, the L train is much filthier, and I’m not referring to the stinky, senseless gross industrial carpeting on our BART trains. Eve sent me this Curbed item To the Girl Watching Porn on the L Train This Morning… saying, “Made me think of your airline wifi column.” Yes, wifi was not necessary for this eventful commute. Snip:

We nearly pissed ourselves reading this. Seriously. While we thought the G Train defloration and condom thing was funny, the story about the female watching some serious bang-bang on the L Train this morning may be even better:

To the woman playing hard-core iPod porn on the L train this morning, thank you for such an entertaining journey under the East River. Seriously folks, from approximately Lorimer St. to 3rd Avenue, this woman was playing some serious, butt-humping porn and yelling at her iPod, giving some twisted commentary that could be heard from both sides of the train. “Oh, here we go, here we go, THERE YOU GO, GET IT, GET IT, OHhhhhhh Damn, let’s get a close-up, zoom in, wake up New York check this shit out, close-up New York City!!!”

And this, friends, is why they call New York, New York the city so nice they named it twice:

Passenger reactions varied. (…read more, curbed.com)

* Note: in the image accompanying the Curbed piece, that’s NY porn director (and old friend) Joe Gallant.

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