Porno y feminismo

El taller consta de dos sesiones de 4 horas y está dirigido a mujeres, lesbianas y transgénero. Tendrá una parte teórica y otra práctica. Los detalles de este ambicioso taller se encuentran en Los placeres de Lola.

El manifiesto de intenciones de Girls who like porno está aquí.

(Vía Pornolab.)

Neurobiología del placer

Los laberintos del placer en el cerebro
Francisco Mora
Alianza. Madrid, 2006. 159 páginas, 14 euros

Francisco Mora es un neurobiólogo acreditado, con una loable trayectoria de divulgador de su arte, que se ha plasmado ya en varios libros dirigidos a un público general. Ahora pretende guiarnos por los laberintos del placer en el cerebro humano, y lo hace en un estilo exento de tecnicismos y rico en metáforas.

En todo progreso del conocimiento aumentan las certezas al precio de multiplicar las dudas. Creía saber qué se entiende por placer, pero después de leer este libro, debo confesar mi confusión al respecto. Como “sensación producida en los sentidos o en la sensibilidad estética por algo que gusta mucho; como un manjar exquisito, un baño en el mar o un trozo de música”, aparece en el diccionario de María Moliner, mientras en otros las definiciones son más vagas y escuetas: “contento del ánimo”, “sensación agradable” o “estado de gratificación”. Mora, en su glosario, lo define como una experiencia subjetiva producida por la satisfacción de alguna necesidad de significado intelectual o emocional, e indica que su sustrato neurobiológico está en los circuitos límbico-corticales de la recompensa. En el propio texto, se extiende el concepto a una amplia gama de supuestos humanos, más allá de los más primarios de la comida, la bebida y la sexualidad, y de los meramente estéticos del arte plástico o la música: el juego, la ciencia, el conocimiento, la venganza, la experiencia religiosa o la sensación de vivir, entre otros. En el capítulo de introducción se va en dirección opuesta, al contemplar supuestos propios de los seres unicelulares y las plantas. Es en esta amplitud de supuestos donde está el origen de mi perplejidad.

Cine transexual

Transamerica

Linda Ruth Williams is delighted by Hollywood’s latest attempt at queering the heartlands of conservative America: Duncan Tucker’s beautiful and original trans-gender road movie

The title seems to say it all: a road movie in which a transsexual traverses the US continent. Yet this indie-spirited film is far from a high-concept off-the-peg folly. Instead, Transamerica affectionately delivers some familiar standards while twisting them with a new metrosexual spin. Pre-operative Bree (formerly Stanley) is about to complete gender realignment when she learns of the existence of her son Toby, who was conceived during a single night of heterosexual experimentation in Bree’s college days. Without telling him who she really is, and urged by her counsellor to face up to the loose ends of her past, Bree bails Toby, a rent boy, out of a New York jail and the pair set off across America - initially to reunite the 17-year-old with his stepfather in Kentucky. How will the conservative southern states of America react to them, and what will they find in each other? Amazingly, a beautiful and original comedy has been crafted from this mix of old and new, which is orchestrated against a backdrop of standard straight roads and sublime sunsets, and played out to a musical soundtrack that moves from bluegrass to country to Tex-Mex as the states roll by.

Poligamia en la tele

‘Big Love’: Real Polygamists Look at HBO Polygamists and Find Sex

By FELICIA R. LEE

SALT LAKE CITY — Yuck, she said. A sex scene. And right at the beginning of the show, her friend chimed in. “Big Love,” HBO’s new take on a fictional polygamous family in the suburbs of this city, was on the television. The Viagra-popping Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) was thrashing in bed with Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), the youngest of his three wives. The five women watching the show — covering their eyes during the sex scenes, chiding the competitive wives, urging Bill to take control — were critics with special credentials: a current or past polygamous marriage. And despite the show’s flaws, these women called “Big Love” a cultural benchmark, one with the potential to cast a warmer light on their lives. “It’s a more realistic view of a polygamous family that lives out in society than people have known,” said Anne Wilde, a widow who was part of a multiple family for 33 years. “It can be seen as a viable alternative lifestyle between consenting adults.”

Poligamia

Hello, Poly
Several women navigate polyamorous relationships as a non-primary partnerby Tristan Taormino
March 17th, 2006 7:21 PM A few weeks ago I was at a party with some friends, and another friend, Jane (some of the subjects’ names have been changed at their request), introduced us to her cousin, who was in town visiting. “This is Kim and . . .” Jane’s voice trailed off, as she wasn’t quite sure how our friend Kim wanted to handle explaining the two guys on either side of her. Kim, a tall striking redhead in a sheer black shirt, turned to the man on her left and said, “This is my husband, Phil.” Then, she subtly gestured to her right, “And this is my boyfriend, Dan.” Polyamorous people have sexual, emotional, loving, and/or committed relationships that are ongoing with more than one person. Relationships, in fact, are what set polyamory apart from other forms of non-monogamy like swinging or occasionally hooking up for sex with other people.

Dinero y sexo

Money worries ‘affect sex drive’

Press Association
Friday March 24, 2006

An estimated 2 million people have lost their sex drive as a result of worrying about money, a survey showed today. One in five people who said financial problems had affected their relationship said the issue had hit their sex life, according to insurance giant AXA. Women are twice as likely to suffer from the problem as men, accounting for two-thirds of people who say money has ruined their sex life. Married or cohabiting couples are also more likely to find that financial problems affect their libido, with more than half of the people who say this has happened currently living with their partner, while 23% are widowed or divorced and 22% are single. A further 37% of people said their money problems had caused them to spend less quality time with their partner, while 50% said they had more arguments and a shorter temper when they were stressed about their finances. Some 26% said they spent less time with their children as a result of their problems. Around two-thirds of people said they always avoided discussing their finances with their partner, family or friends because it caused them anxiety. “Our study has revealed that this sensitive problem is quite widespread and a person with a financial problem is likely to lean on his or her partner for support and advice,” said Darrin Nightingale, of AXA. “When the original money problem breeds a second, more personal, problem with their relationship, it can make things much harder to deal with.”

(Gracias, Charo.)

Tetófilos

 

Meet the Boobiesexuals
Gay men and straight women lust after bulging breasts tooby Rachel Kramer Bussel
March 24th, 2006 7:03 PM 

Ogling breasts isn’t just for straight men and lesbians anymore. Moving beyond traditional labels, gay men and straight women are outing themselves as “boobiesexuals.” The term was coined by podcaster Cunning Minx (polyweekly.libsyn.com) to stand for “women who are mostly straight but who are really, really into women’s breasts.” I’ve expanded it to include gay men. This new breed is committed to their sexual orientation, but acknowledges that, like the horniest of frat boys or Hooters customers, they’re turned on by tits.

Misoginia

El odio a las mujeres

Por Ricardo García Cárcel.

Una breve historia de
la misoginia. Antología y crítica
Anna Caballé
Lumen. barcelona, 2006
512 páginas, 20 euros

«El odio más largo de la historia, más milenario aún y más planetario que el del judío es el odio a las mujeres.» La afirmación de André Glucksmann la hace suya Anna Caballé para recorrer la historia de la misoginia en nuestro país o, para ser más precisos, la historia de la representación literaria de la misoginia. Porque, efectivamente, Anna Caballé, extraordinaria conocedora de la literatura sobre la mujer a lo largo del tiempo (como ya demostró en “La vida escrita por las mujeres” que dirigió en Círculo de Lectores, 2003), aborda las fuentes literarias, desde la Baja Edad Media hasta la actualidad, ofreciéndonos una preciosa antología de textos testimoniales del desprecio, odio o descalificación de las mujeres, que la literatura ha ido segregando. Y ello lo hace, como queda bien explícito en la introducción general del libro y las breves presentaciones que realiza de cada uno de los cinco períodos en los que divide la obra (de la Edad Media hasta el siglo XVI; el período barroco; el siglo XVIII; el XIX y el XX), con beligerante voluntad vindicativa.

Amor marital

How she invented sex in 1918

Melvyn Bragg tells how a revolutionary book by Marie Stopes changed marriage for ever ‘In my own marriage,” Marie Stopes wrote in the preface to her book Married Love, “I paid such a terrible price for sex-ignorance that I feel that knowledge gained at such a cost should be placed at the service of humanity.” A more seductive advertisement for the content of such a book at such a time, 1918, can scarcely be imagined. Here was an evidently educated woman prepared to put her life’s most guarded and humiliating secret into the marketplace of common knowledge. Here was a teacher who would lead from experience. The book not only legitimised female sexual pleasure, it encouraged it and set out instructions on how to obtain it. Its message was sharp and unequivocal: “The English and American peoples, who lead the world in so many ways, have an almost unprecedentedly high proportion of married women who get no satisfaction from physical union with their husbands, though they bear children, and may in every other respect appear to be happily married.”

Química amorosa

 

El psiquiatra Adolf Tobeña desvela las rutas cerebrales del amor y del sexo

La traca hormonal

MARTÍ DOMÍNGUEZ  - 22/03/2006

A principios de los años setenta, la gente de este país se compraba Adolescencia, sexo y cultura en Samoa esperando encontrar alguna página picante. El apetito, en este sentido, era tan acuciante, que el libro de Margaret Mead (que en inglés se titulaba Coming of age in Samoa) constituyó un sorprendente best seller. Evidentemente aquel súbito interés popular por la antropología venía provocado por un frenesí genésico (nadie hasta entonces había oído hablar de Samoa), y la decepción fue por tanto bastante generalizada: al fin y al cabo, la permisividad sexual de los jóvenes samoanos tampoco era tan extravagante. Pero la realidad es que los libros que tratan nuestra sexualidad, desde los más abstrusos (véase Bataille hablando del erotismo o Baudrillard de la seducción) hasta el informe Kinsey, son un éxito de ventas. O, al menos, acostumbran a triunfar con mucha mayor facilidad que otros ensayos. El libro de Adolf Tobeña El cervell eròtic no fue una excepción: el éxito fue inmediato y en muy poco tiempo se agotó la primera edición. No obstante, han tenido que pasar diez años para que el libro se reeditara, en esta ocasión también en español, traducido por el propio autor.

Darío Fo

 
Sex o no sex

JAVIER VALLEJO EL PAÍS - Cultura - 28-03-2006

Hará 25 años se desató una epidemia editorial. Al hilo del éxito de Zen en el arte del mantenimiento de la motocicleta, de Robert M. Pirsig, fueron apareciendo libros y más libros cuyos autores abordan materias variopintas desde idéntica perspectiva filosófica: Zen en el arte del tiro con arco, Zen en el arte de escribir… Jacopo Fo, hijo del premio Nobel Dario Fo y de la actriz Franca Rame, parodió esta moda en Lo zen e l’arte di scopare (literalmente El zen y el arte de follar), publicado en 1993. Sus padres lo convirtieron en un monólogo teatral.

Nueva píldora

New pill promises to reduce breast cancer risk

· Controversial ingredient could aid PMT sufferers
· Anti-abortion groups challenge safety record

Polly Curtis, health correspondent
Tuesday March 28, 2006

Guardian

Scientists are working on a new generation of chemical contraceptives which could hugely reduce side-effects, including the risk of breast cancer and blood clots, 50 years after the first trial of the pill.

Laboratory studies suggest that, aside from stopping women getting pregnant, the new pill could reduce breast cancers, thrombosis, and heart disease associated with the existing pill. It also stops women having periods altogether - suggesting it could offer relief for the hundreds of thousands suffering from PMT.

But it will be controversial because the new group of compounds include a drug known as mifepristone, which is licensed in the UK for use in chemical abortions.

It is the first offer of an alternative to the progesterone and oestrogen combinations that are taken by 3.4 million women in the UK, but it is expected to take five years to reach the market.

Bailarina transexual

March 20, 2006

Jin Xing, with Catherine Texier: “Shanghai Tango”. Translated from the French by Anne Spielmann. Blanvalet Publishing House, Munich; 224 pages; €19.95.

Ballet, a Sex Change and a Small Revolution

The Odyssey of Jin Xing

By Erich Follath

Jin Xing has a one-of-a-kind biography: born as a boy, he advanced to the rank of colonel in the Chinese army. Then came the sex change and the staggering career as a world-class prima ballerina.

Jin Xing poses in front of the Grand Theater in downtown Shanghai, on People’s Square, self-assured in a red, body-hugging turtleneck sweater and relaxed black jeans. A larger-than-life-sized poster of her visage, heavily made up as a cross between East and West, advertises her latest performance — as prima ballerina in a ballet version of Karl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” a performance she choreographed herself. The sweeping curves of the chrome and glass opera building, an architectural interpretation of classic China, shimmer in the background.

Luna de miel/ Honeymoon

Me voy de luna de miel a Grecia. Volveré el 28…

I`ll be back in a week, the 28th…

Juan

Padres solteros

Unwed Fathers Fight for Babies Placed for Adoption by Mothers

By TAMAR LEWIN

Jeremiah Clayton Jones discovered that his former fiancée was pregnant just three weeks before the baby was due, when an adoption-agency lawyer called and asked if he would consent to have his baby adopted.

“I said absolutely not,” said Mr. Jones, a 23-year-old Arizona man who met his ex-fiancée at Pensacola Christian College in Florida. “It was an awkward moment, hearing for the first time that I would be a father, and then right away being told, ‘We want to take your kid away.’ But I knew that if I was having a baby, I wanted that baby.”

Mr. Jones has never seen his son, now 18 months old. Instead, he lost his parental rights because of his failure to file with a state registry for unwed fathers — something he learned of only after it was too late.

Under Florida law, and that of other states, an unmarried father has no right to withhold consent for adoption unless he has registered with the state putative father registry before an adoption petition is filed. Mr. Jones missed the deadline.

Although one in every three American babies has unwed parents, birth fathers’ rights remain an unsettled area, a delicate balancing act between the importance of biological ties and the undisrupted placement of babies whose mothers relinquish them for adoption.

While women have the right to get an abortion, or to have and raise a child, without informing the father, courts have increasingly found that when birth mothers choose adoption, fathers who have shown a desire for involvement have rights, too.

En busca de donantes de esperma

March 19, 2006

Wanted: A Few Good Sperm

By JENNIFER EGAN

One day last October, Karyn, a 39-year-old executive, pulled her online dating profile off JDate and Match.com, two sites she had been using, along with an endless series of leads, tips and blind dates arranged by friends and colleagues, to search for a man she wanted to marry and raise a family with. At long last, after something like 100 dates in the past 10 years and several serious relationships, she had found the man she refers to, tongue only slightly in cheek, as “the one.” It all began last summer, when she broke off a relationship with a younger man who wasn’t ready for children and got serious about the idea of conceiving on her own. She gathered information about fertility doctors and sperm banks. “Then a childhood friend of mine was over,” she told me. “I pulled up the Web site of the only sperm bank that I know of that has adult photos. There happened to be one Jewish person. I pulled up the photo, and I looked at my friend, and I looked at his picture, and I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ I can’t say love at first sight, because, you know. But he was the one.”

Sperm donors, like online daters, answer myriad questions about heroes, hobbies and favorite things. Karyn read her donor’s profile and liked what she saw. “You can tell he comes from a warm family, some very educated,” she said. He had worked as a chef. He had “proven fertility,” meaning that at least one woman conceived using his sperm. Like all sperm donors, he was free from any sexually transmitted diseases or testable genetic disorders. “People in New York change sex partners quicker than the crosstown bus,” Karyn said. “I’d be a lot more concerned about my date next week.” But she especially liked the fact that he was an identity-release donor (also called an “open donor” or a “yes donor”) — a growing and extremely popular category of sperm donors who are willing to be contacted by any offspring who reach the age of 18.