From the Archive:HIV and Bareback Sex

Here's the penultimate trawl of the blog archive and this time I focus on bareback sex and HIV. Don't get me wrong, these topics are not necessarily connected but through the legal prism, the two issues are more closely connected than they might be sociologically. Anyhow, here you go:

Stephen Fry: HIV and Me

AIDS Moral Panic

Newsnight: Bareback Porn

Bareback Ban

Living with HIV

Treasure Island Media, Bareback Porn and Beyond Assimilation

The HIV Gag

Positive Porn

Boring HIV?

Ryan Sullivan’s Island

Publications

Most of my publications are now available on SSRN. I hope this will make it easier to locate my academic work. Check out the page here.

If Michael Warner & Antonin Scalia Had A Chat About Marriage, What Would They Say?

I'm loving these videos being posted on the Columbia Law School, Gender, Sexuality and Law blog from graduate students. I'm going to try replicating the exercise with my undergraduate law and sexuality students next week. Check out Columbia's latest video here.

Will churches really be sued for not allowing civil partnerships?

Really interesting post from Matthew Flinn on the UK Human Rights blog exploring the latest legal moves in relation to civil partnerships. Well worth a read.

Aid to Africa, Gay Rights and a Counterintuitive Reaction

Hurrah, a Tory MEP, Charles Tannock, says something sensible, and argues that EU financial aid to African countries should depend on their commitment to gay and human rights. He specifically focuses on Uganda and the case of David Kato who was murdered last month. He reportedly said:

“It is inevitable that in a climate of such bigotry the lives of gay rights activists would be endangered, and so it has sadly proved to be the case with David Kato. He knew the risks of publicly defending gays.

“I am sure that many of my London constituents are deeply concerned about the European Union giving financial aid to a country where such disgusting sentiments are not only tolerated but sometimes apparently officially condoned."

I'm going to say something you might not expect, and which may annoy some of you. I think he's wrong. I think, when it comes to aid for Africa, we ought to be going against our instincts and giving the dosh anyway - even to countries like Uganda; countries that oppress and murder their homosexual citizens.

This isn't because I've flipped but rather because I think we are becoming too focused on the "small picture", and too rooted in a narrow European perspective. We are failing to fully appreciate what's going on in Africa and how rapidly Europe is losing its influence. One word explains this. That word is 'China'.

China is pouring aid into Africa by the bucket-load. A rapidly expanding Chinese economy needs the raw resources that Africa is rich in, and it needs to build the relationships, and ensure it has influcnce in the giant continent that is Africa. It is busy building tomorrow's world, whilst Europe can't look past yesterday's world. The aid from China often comes without the strings that would come with European aid. As you would expect, human rights isn't a major issue for China.

If you were running an African government, who would you take your money from? The with strings or no-strings funder? The one who says nothing but nice things, or the constant critic? It's not hard to see why China is advancing across Africa. This means that a set of values are being perpetuated into the long term that reflect Chinese socio-political and legal concerns. They will be transplanted into the African consciousness and European ideals and values will increasingly be rejected. Only by being in there, by being a friend to Africa, can we say the things that only a friend can say. The things that only a friend listens to.

So, whilst my instinct is to say "hurrah", to agree with the comments of Tannock, my head says "no". Let's keep focused on the bigger picture in Africa and delivering long-term sustainable human rights, and a transformation in attitudes to gender and sexuality.

Sex Censorship v Freedom

Another great video, that I'm ashamed to say, somehow passed me by. Myles Jackman (who is also on twitter as @ObscenityLawyer), is legal affairs advisor to the Backlash group and a solicitor. He made a presentation to the 2009 Libertarian Alliance annual conference on the law relating to 'extreme pornography'. It's really interesting, well-pitched and well worth a watch but I wish the chair didn't look so bored (it obviously went down better in the room than with him), and I'm also irritated that the first questioner makes a rant so there's hardly any other time for other questions. Grrrr! Anyway, check out the video below.

laconf09, Myles Jackman: "Sex Censorship v Freedom" from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

The Irrationality of the Anti-Sex Lobby

Another brilliant piece on the Freedom in a Puritan Age webzine. This time, it's from Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle de Jour). She makes a quite brilliant argument about emotion vs rationality, and argues in favour of moving the pro-sex argument to being one of emotion rather than rationality. I think it's a brilliant thesis, and an argument that 'has legs'. I hope Brooke continuous to develop this argument. I can see lots of academics picking it up. Check out the full piece here.

Leather (Hi)story in Amsterdam

I can't believe I didn't come across this before, but Mr Leather Europe 2009, the hypnotically attractive (sorry, TMI?) Pieter Claeys, has a video of his address briefly talking about the leather (hi)story of Amsterdam. it's well worth a watch (see below). There's an interview in Dutch half way through. If (like me) you don't speak Dutch, don't give up, skip forward and there's more presentation.

Visualising HIV

Thanks to Todd for making me aware of this video from the New Scientist (see below) of the HIV virus. I confess, to me it looks like an animator has been let loose with carpet samples, but apparently it is the most complex 3D model of the virus produced to date. Interesting stuff.

Curating Our Vast Queer Past: Kickoff Program at the GLBT History Museum

Any San Francisco based readers of the blog should really get themselves to this event on Thursday evening. It sounds great:

Come hear GLBT History Museum co-curators Gerard Koskovich, Don Romesburg, and Amy Sueyoshi describe how they created the premiere exhibition, Our Vast Queer Past: Celebrating San Francisco's GLBT History, why they chose various artifacts and themes, and what it all says about queer history-making today. Each curator also will share the stories behind a few of their favorite items in the show. In addition, the curators will invite the always-lively GLBT Historical Society audience to share their own observations about the exhibition and have a dialogue about the future of the queer past. This event is free and open to the public. Museum admission is $5, free for members.

The GLBT History Museum
4127 18th St. (between Castro & Collingwood)
24 February · 19:00 - 21:00

Liverpool Queer Space: Take Two

It's probably a sign that you've been doing the same thing for too long when the same story comes around again. The item in today that Liverpool is to create a 'Gay Village' seems rather old-hat, especially if you read this post on my blog back in 2007. They've even sued the same name, a 'quarter'. I can't understand why they are seeking to do this now - at a time of economic difficulty - when they could have done it in the last four years. Liverpool has spent considerable sums on trying to create key economic draws (eg the new conference and shopping centres). It also comes after news that Destination (apparently the largest venue on the scene) has closed suggesting a scene struggling, and in need of private sector investment rather than the council now coming along and 'designating' a space, with no money to spend. There is also the ongoing issue of designating a space as a 'tourist' destination and then encountering the difficulties of hen-parties and straight groups penetrating the space (as has been well documented in Manchester).

The Politics of Sexualisation

Really great piece from Jane Fae in the Freedom in a Puritan Age webzine. Check it out here.

British gay Muslims seek Islamic weddings

Really interesting fresh angle on the subject of same-sex marriage and the religious dimension offered by the BBC. It's broadcast tonight on BBC Radio 5 Live and will be available on the iPlayer.

The Equality Flip-Side

The Telegraph reports today that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is examining whether "gay-only" guesthouses breach new laws designed to prevent people being treated unfairly in the provision of goods or services. My students will tell you that I do bang on about this aspect of equality. That is to say, gay venues that appear to discriminate against straight people - the gay hotel or the gay pub and bar. The ghetto has continued to discriminate in subtle ways despite equality legislation - bouncers asking "this is a gay bar, are you sure it's your type of venue gents?" Someone once said this to me and I remain unsure whether he was saying I was too unattractive to enter the venue or simple looked too straight.

Anyway, I think the review is right and over-due. It raises some very serious questions for those who have sought to see equality as something to be imposed upon others, and not apply to themselves. The trouble with this simple right-wing narrative is that it fails to appreciate that there's a reason for 'gay' bars, hotels and other spaces and it is a desire to appropriate a space that can be deemed 'safe'. Safe from fear, and safe from violence. We still need such spaces today. However, we must recognise that to argue such a position is to also argue against equality.

Civil Partnerships and Religious Buildings

The announcement finally came this week that the ban on Civil Partnerships beign conducted in religious buildings would come to an end. I found myself cast as the misery-guts academic last weekend for warning that the media speculation about 'gay marriage' and Churches hosting same-sex 'marriages' was all utterly miss-leading. As the full announcement makes clear, this about enacting section 202 of the 2010 Equality Act. It does not introduce gay marriage - the announcement was remarkably quiet on that topic, despite media speculation last weekend - but does allow Civil partnerships to be conducted upon religious premises. However, that's for religious premises to decide. They are therefore unlikely to take place in 'Churches' given the view of the Catholic and Anglican Churches. They are unlikely to take place in Mosques either. Temples maybe. The Quakers seem the one faith to welcome the move.

The Home Office also posted a video to YouTube relating to the announcement. You can check it out below.

Sex Offenders and Human Rights

The current media obsession with attacking human rights law appeared to receive a further boost this last week with the announcement by UK Home Secretary, Teresa May, that the government would be introducing the right to request a review as to whether one should remain on the sex offenders register. This followed a decision by the UK Supreme Court last year. Let's begin with May's statement which is worth reading in full:

'The sex offenders' register has existed since 1997. Since that time it has helped the police to protect the public from these most horrific of crimes.

Requiring serious sexual offenders to sign the register for life - as they do now - has broad support from across this House.

However, the Supreme Court ruled last April that not granting sex offenders the opportunity to seek a review is a breach of their human rights – in particular, the right to a private or family life. These are rights, of course, that these offenders have taken away from their victims in the cruelest and most degrading manner possible.

The government is disappointed and appalled by this ruling – it places the rights of sex offenders above the right of the public to be protected from the risk of re-offending - but there is no possibility of further appeal.

This government is determined to do everything we can to protect the public from predatory sexual offenders. And so we will make the minimum possible changes to the law in order to comply with this ruling.

I want to make clear that the Court's ruling does not mean that paedophiles and rapists will automatically come off the sex offenders’ register. The Court found only that they must be given the right to to seek a review.

The Scottish government has already implemented a scheme to give offenders an automatic right of appeal for removal from the register after 15 years. We will implement a much tougher scheme.

Offenders can only apply for consideration of removal after waiting 15 years following release from custody – in England and Wales there will be no automatic appeals.

We will deliberately set the bar for those reviews as high as possible. Public protection must come first.

A robust review, led by the police and involving all relevant agencies, will be carried out so that a full picture of the risks to the public can be considered.

The final decision of whether an offender should remain on the register will be down to the police, not the courts, as in Scotland – the police are best placed to assess the risk of an offender committing another crime, and they will rightly put the public first.

There will be no right of appeal against the police’s decision to keep an offender on the register. That decision will be final.

Sex offenders who continue to pose a risk will remain on the register and will do so for life, if necessary.

• Where we are free to take further action to protect the public, we will do so. We will be shortly launching a targeted consultation aimed at closing down four existing loopholes in the sex offenders register
• We will make it compulsory for sex offenders to report to the authorities before travelling abroad for even one day. This will prevent offenders from being free to travel for up to three days as they are under the existing scheme
• We will force sex offenders to notify the authorities whenever they are living in a household with a child under the age of 18
• We will require sex offenders to notify the authorities weekly as to where they can be found when they have no fixed abode
• And we will tighten the rules so that sex offenders can no longer avoid being on the register when they change their name by deed poll

Finally, I can tell the House today that the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary will shortly announce the establishment of a Commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of Rights.

It is time to assert that it is Parliament that makes our laws, not the courts; that the rights of the public come before the rights of criminals; and above all, that we have a legal framework that brings sanity to cases such as these.

I commend this statement to the House.'

May's announcement of the Bill of Rights Commission was probably an attempt to throw her own Tory backbenchers some red meat. The decision - which was infinitely sensible - followed the decision in Regina (F (A Child)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, and Regina (Thompson) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] 2 W.L.R. 992. It is worth re-stating the headnote of that case:

The claimant in the first case was convicted of a number of serious sexual offences, including two offences of rape, which he committed when aged 11 and he was sentenced to a period of 30 months' detention. The claimant in the second case, an adult, was convicted on, inter alia, two counts of indecent assault and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. By virtue of the nature of their offences and the length of their sentences the claimants became automatically subject for an indefinite period to the notification requirements in sections 82 to 86 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 1 . By those requirements an offender had to inform the police of certain personal details and by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Travel Notification Requirements) Regulations 2004 2 , made pursuant to section 86 , an offender had to inform the police of the *993 details of foreign travel plans. The claimants sought judicial review by way of a declaration of incompatibility under section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998 that the absence of any mechanism for review of the notification requirements in the 2003 Act was a disproportionate interference with the right to respect for private and family life guaranteed by article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 3 . The Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division granted the declarations of incompatibility and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision.

The Court dismissed the appeal of the Secretary of State, and held that the notification requirements in and under the 2003 Act were capable of causing significant interference with article 8 rights; that if some of those who were subject to lifetime notification requirements were able to demonstrate that they no longer posed any significant risk of committing further sexual offences there was no point in subjecting them to that interference with their article 8 rights and doing so could only impose an unnecessary and unproductive burden on the responsible authorities; that the degree of risk of sexual offenders re-offending had to be assessed in a number of situations and there had to be circumstances in which an appropriate tribunal could reliably conclude that the risk of an individual carrying out a further sexual offence could be discounted to the extent that continuance of notification requirements was unjustified; that it was open to the legislature to impose an appropriately high threshold for such a review; and that, accordingly, the indefinite notification requirements constituted a disproportionate interference with article 8 rights because they made no provision for individual review of the requirements and the declarations of incompatibility made by the Divisional Court would stand.

No-one is ever going to become popular for defending the rights of sex offenders, especially convicted paedophiles. However, the right to request a review of being on the register is surely a sensible and civilised approach to take. It's also one that is in line with our stated human rights law commitments. It simply enables people to asks the Police to take a 'second look' at whether they should be placed on the Sex Offenders Register. It will be interesting to see how many convicted sex offenders will seek to take advantage of this new right, and how many will have their registration requirements changed as a result of a successful review.

From the Archive: Sex Work

Another series of posts 'from the archive' to share this week. I've got two more themes left, which I'll share over the next two weekends.

Hustlaball and Images of Sex Work

Harman Attacks Punternet

Sex Work on Campus

Soho Sex Worker Raid

Labour in Sex Industry ‘Crackdown’ Pledge

The Student Lap-Dancers

The Guardian carries an interesting piece today on university students working as lap-dancers. Its great that they are discussing the fact that students do engage in various aspects of the sex industry (broadly defined) but slightly depressing that it is very Guardian in focusing upon women and mixing in the usual 'tut-tuting'. I'd rather students didn't have to work at all while at university (loopy radical that I am) but if students do work, I'm not overly concerned they are involved in the sex industry of it is an informed choice and done on a consensual basis. Many male students also work in porn, act as escorts and perform as erotic dancers. We need to get away from the narrow view of 'exploited' women.

Read the Guardian piece in full here.

Open Your Hole!

Apologies for yet another bareback story - it just seems to be so often in the media and also an area of interest for me at the moment. Anyhow, back in September last year I posted this item about the Shut Your Hole video campaign, fronted by Chi Chi LaRue - porn director/mogul and campaigner. Now Treasure Island Media (so it seems) and friends have hit back with a Open Your Hole video which is a bit of an insider joke. Alas, no-one seems to do the William Shatner style comment which so entertained me in the original video. It is nonetheless wonderfully bitchy and if you've seen the original video (which you can do here), it's very funny. It's also an important response in what I have termed the 'bareback war'. Watch the latest video below (warning, scary clown at the start aka Keer).

Queerty Tackles Bareback Sex and Bareback Porn

Really interesting piece on the Queerty website. It focuses on the continued rejection of condoms by many gay men, and bareback behaviour. The opening paragraphs are logical and a breath of fresh air but the piece then turns to the law as a solution and here it becomes a terrible muddle. Queerty offers the solution of studios creating legal contractual duties upon performers for when their off-set preventing them from engaging in bareback sex. This way studios keep their performers 'safe'. Please! If the first part of the article is true (and I think it is), then men bareback because they like it. They are still going to bareback and such contractual commitments are a nonsense, replacing hypocrisy with cynicism. It also strikes me as a legal nightmare for studios and their lawyers.

Interestingly, Treasure Island Media is also targeted a 'bad boy' whilst recently seroconverted porn performer, Mason Wyler's new foray into bareback porn with Dark Alley Media seems acceptable. In a piece about hypocrisy, this seems, well, hypocritical.

Read the full piece here. You can also read my previous thought on the bareback porn industry here.

Drug and Disease Free Queer Culture

A came across this video via the Wyler Nation blog (Wyler is a HIV positive porn performer). It's a rather wonderful take on gay men, HIV and online hook-up sites. The language is also weirdly accurate.

A 'Marriage' Media Muddle

*Expanded and revised 15.22 on 13/2/11.

I started digging for this blog post and then gave up because it's such a muddle. However, as more and more seem to be welcoming a botched leak, presumably from the Home Office/Government Equalities Office I feel the need to write.

The Sunday Times and the Telegraph both run the story on 'gay marriage'. The Sunday Telegraph both goes with the headline 'Gay 'marriages' to be allowed in church' whilst the Sunday Times goes with 'Gays will get right to marry'. The BBC has subsequently picked up the story.

There seems to actually be two stories going on here but I'm struck that it seems to have been leaked to right of centre media outlets on a Sunday. Someone is flying a kite.

The Sunday Times begins by stating 'Gay men and lesbians are to be given the same right to marry as heterosexual couples under marriage law reforms expected to be announced this week'. OK, so if (a big if) true, this would pre-empt 'half' of the Equal Love legal action and open up marriage to both gay and straight couples. It would also make a legal action (the other 'half' of the Equal Love campaign) to open civil partnerships to all couples - not just same-sex ones - a certain win. So, if the story is accurate, civil partnerships will also need to be opened up. At the time of writing, no media story seems to take this into account.

Next up, if marriage is defined to be open to same-sex couples, religious providers will then need to provide those services too. That's why I think this is probably a muddle and a bit of Chinese Whispers in the media.

Far more likely (and less exciting) is that the government is now developing Section 202 of the Equality Act 2010. This section removes the express prohibition which prevents civil partnership registrations from being registered on religious premises. However, in order for this to come into force, the Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) Regulations 2005 would need to be amended and a full public consultation would be required before any change was introduced.

This is likely to be the announcement of that consultation. Again, no report seems to make reference to section 202.

Any such review is likely (as the Sunday Times does suggest) to seek to navigate a route that allows some religious groups to allow for civil partnerships to take place on religious premises and others the ability to continue to deny that right. This does seem hugely problematic, and they are going to be a series of human rights based legal challenges until equality is achieved.

So, before we all get terribly excited, let's calm down and see what's announced. It's unlikely to be as great as the media seem to be billing things now and that's going to be a major headache for Lib Dem Minister, Lynne Featherstone, especially in light of the criminal convictions story. Th Government will be seen as 'watering down' equality proposals, when in reality they were never as radical as the media made them out to be.

A genuinely radical, and I would suggest better proposal, would be to take religion out of this whole thing. Allow a range of state recognised relationships and remove the ability of religious groups to offer anything other than a religious 'blessing' for anyone who wants that. People would go to the register office and could get married/enter a civil union/partnership without any ceremony and then go to Church and become 'married' in the eyes of their faith. This would also drag marriage and civil partnerships out of the legal quagmire and better reflect contemporary society.

Notes from the Archive: TV and Film

My dig through the archive continues and this week I bring you a selection of posts that address TV and film. A range of this documentaries are still really useful but I realise you might have missed them on the blog.

Pride Not Prejudice DVD

20/20 My Secret Self

2006 Violent Porn Sky News Discussion

Castro Christian Riots

Proposition 8 Protests

The End of Camp & the Search for the Great Dark Man

Historic Gay Convictions

Rumours that the Home Office has been sipping at the Kool-Aid are unsubstantiated, but their defence isn't helped by the latest developments in the Government's plans for 'deleting' historic gay convictions. This was a pledge contained in the Coalition Agreement but contrary to the belief that there was a promise to 'delete' offences, there was not. The pledge (at page 24) stated that 'we will change the law so that historical convictions for consensual gay sex with over-16s will be treated as spent and will not show up on criminal records checks.'

So, the proposed legalisation to do that in the Protection of Freedoms Bill should not come as a huge surprise as that is what it does. The only trouble is, the interpretation of the government promise was wider than the pledge, with many believing (and media reports uncorrected) that these historic offences would be 'deleted' although when you trawl the origins of this pledge, no such promise was actually made. Nonetheless, there is now an opportunity to go further and improve the bill before Parliament. Clause 82 of the Bill states:

Clause 82

82 Power of Secretary of State to disregard convictions or cautions

(1) A person who has been convicted of, or cautioned for, an offence under—

(a) 5section 12 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 (buggery),

(b) section 13 of that Act (gross indecency between men), or

(c) section 61 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 or section 11 of
the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 (corresponding earlier
offences),

10may apply to the Secretary of State for the conviction or caution to become a
disregarded conviction or caution.

(2) A conviction or caution becomes a disregarded conviction or caution when
conditions A and B are met.

(3) Condition A is that the Secretary of State decides that it appears that—

(a) 15the other person involved in the conduct constituting the offence
consented to it and was aged 16 or over, and

(b) any such conduct now would not be an offence under section 71 of the
Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sexual activity in a public lavatory).

(4) Condition B is that—

(a) 20the Secretary of State has given notice of the decision to the applicant
under section 84(4)(b), and

(b) the period of 14 days beginning with the day on which the notice was
given has ended.

(5) Sections 85 to 88 explain the effect of a conviction or caution becoming a
25disregarded conviction or caution.

The Real Fun

Clause 83 makes it clear that an application must be made to the Home Office for this process to kick in (I'd like it to have been done automatically, without submission but I accept that might not have been practical). It is Clause 85(5) where the fun really begins and which has caused Peter Tatchell and Jane Fae, among others, to criticise the legislation. 85(5) states:

“delete”, in relation to such relevant official records as may be prescribed,
means record with the details of the conviction or caution concerned—
(a)

the fact that it is a disregarded conviction or caution, and
(b)

the effect of it being such a conviction or caution,

Reaction

Yep, 'delete' has been defined in the Bill to mean something other than what most people would understand the word 'delete' to mean. Don't you just love law? Jane Fae blasted in Pink News that “Only in the language of civil servants and bureaucrats does this mean ‘deletion’.

“In practice, conviction details will remain on police databases, for police officers to review and, as a landmark court case ruled last year, open for use when considering a suspect’s status where they deem such use to be justified."

Peter Tatchell added “A person’s conviction will still remain in their criminal record. This is not a satisfactory solution at all."

It's not satisfactory. There may be administrative reasons (or others) as to why 'deletion' in a more generally understood sense can not take place. If this is so, the Home Office needs to make a much better effort to explain the rationale. Alternatively, and I would suggest preferably, the Home Office should listen to the concern of activists and academics and change the Bill.

Enough with the Pubic Hair Panic

Bidisha is sadly not a reader of this blog. If she did, perhaps she wouldn't have written this piece in the Guardian yesterday. She is the latest feminist to tackle the apparently troubling issue of public hair removal, and porn as a motivator for this behaviour among women. Bidisha does (finally!) recognise that growing numbers of men are also removing their public hair, but she confines this to just men in porn, commenting that: 'You can see the spring branches of their willies and their little bobbling balls, outlined in their scrota like farm eggs in a chammy cloth.'

In Bidisha's analysis, men are all heterosexual (like I really need to say something about that?) but men are apparently able to resist pressures from their porn performing brethren thanks to some inner qualities. Bidisha notes that: 'Men are not as cowed, self-hating, obedient or biddable as women in this regard. They are not going to make the effort to do anything to please a woman, at the cost of their own comfort.'

Okay dokey. Don't worry, Bidisha still has lots of venom to fire to men, apparently believing that men can not (thanks to their near constant wanking at pubic hair-free porn) compute the notion that a woman might not have public hair (yet can oddly note the continued presence of hair on themselves but not in porn). She suggests that: 'Upon seeing some real hair on a real woman for the first time they may well vomit or faint, or both. That is something I'd like to see: a man so dizzied by the shortfall between reality and his own ignorance that his brain can't take it and he loses consciousness.'

Oh dear.

In praise of... the bed

I've just had published a very short 'fun' piece for the webzine, Freedom in a Puritan Age. Check it out here. It proved really difficult getting it into the short word-limit but I hope it stimulates thought nonetheless.

Raw Pride and the Bareback Brotherhood

I'm struck by the rapidly developing nature of the online space for barebacking men. There are well known commercial websites that have been discussed by academics and journalists alike, and they do seem to be undergoing steady growth. One bugchasing discussion board site is in decline owing to the sites owner not apparently paying bills but that has spawned new sites together with a collective discussion about 'identity', and perhaps most fascinating of all, the notion of saving an online community. As one site dies, people have come to realise the value of these sites for expressing their desire and identity.

Set against this background, Twitter and Facebook are enabling the barebackers and bugchasers (there is overlap but it's wrong to lump everyone together) to establish and consolidate a sense of community. The latest of these, with a new Facebook page and also a Twitter hashtag - #BBBH - is calling itself 'The Bareback Brotherhood'.

The IBlastinside blog (NSFW) is written by one of the group's founders and he reveals on his blog how the group came to form. He writes: 'Over the last week or so, a group of Twitter users have really stepped it up a notch and connected online. This sudden enthusiasm for barebacking seems to have reached a tipping point where enough men have finally found each other'.

The group has a Facebook profile and a discussion board. It's all non-commercial and seems to have genuinely grown organically from a community of men who have found each other online. This emerging community is of course fascinating for socio-legal scholars, for as I have previously written, I believe that there is a coming culture crisis involving bareback sex.

The emergence of a radical identity is therefore really significant. Bareback ceases to be merely a form of casual sexual behaviour, but a conscious empowered and radical act and identity. The Facebook page has one posting with the slogan: 'By barebackers, For barebackers - no judgement; fucking without fear - Raw Pride'.

The notion of 'Raw Pride' is fast gaining currency and the phrase 'fucking without fear', similarly gaining recognition. Bareback is a means of defining identity, it has a tangible community in cyberspace and is now honing a political and activist message. The Bareback Brotherhood (which amidst the crisis in Egypt has overtones of the Muslim Brotherhood - a group often labeled as 'extreme'), may well fizzle out, but either way, it could be another important moment in the bareback phenomenon.

Journal Alert: Sexualities

A new issue of Sexualities is available online:
1 February 2011; Vol. 14, No. 1

Articles

Sexualities and class
Yvette Taylor
Sexualities 2011;14 3-11
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/3

Heterosexual hierarchies: A commentary on class and sexuality
Stevi Jackson
Sexualities 2011;14 12-20
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/1/12

Class, sexuality and space: A comment
Jon Binnie
Sexualities 2011;14 21-26
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/1/21

‘Where was the land where neither I nor my children were property?’: A lesbian mother speaks
Minnie Bruce Pratt
Sexualities 2011;14 27-35
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/1/27

Class matters ... but how much? Class, nation, and queer life
Steven Seidman
Sexualities 2011;14 36-41
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/1/36

Gay identities and the culture of class
Brian Heaphy
Sexualities 2011;14 42-62
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/42

The world some have won: Sexuality, class and inequality
Elizabeth McDermott
Sexualities 2011;14 63-78
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/63

Working-class lesbian parents’ emotional engagement with their children’s education: Intersections of class and sexuality
Catherine Ann Nixon
Sexualities 2011;14 79-99
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/79

‘By partner we mean ...’: Alternative geographies of ‘gay marriage’
Kath Browne
Sexualities 2011;14 100-122
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/100

Book Review: Phillip L. Hammack and Bertam J. Cohler (editors) The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course 2009, Oxford: Oxford University Press 474 pages, $49.95 (USD), Hardback. ISBN13: 9780195326789; ISBN10: 0195326784
Peter Hennen
Sexualities 2011;14 123-124
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/1/123

Book Review: Benjamin Shepard, Queer Political Performance and Protest. New York: Routledge, 2010. 320pp. ISBN: 978-0-415-96096-0, and
Matt G Mutchler
Sexualities 2011;14 125-126
http://sex.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/1/125

James Darling: A Day in the Life of a Queer Porn Performer

The wonderful James Darling, who you may have previously seen responding to my students' posts here, has posted a new video. The videos gives an insight into his working day, waking up, preparing for a porn shoot and heading back to the Bart station after the shoot, chatting to his lover Quinn Valentine and even boiling a sex toy at the end of the day. His closing remarks are touchingly honest. Come on guys, give him more work. He's fab. Check out his latest video below:

Porn Laws Around the Globe

OK, it took me a little while to sort this out but it's now looking lovely. I spotted this great graphic guide to porn laws around the globe on the RedTube straight porn website/blog and thought you'd appreciate it. You can check out the full website here but warning, it's definitely NSFW!

Notes From the Archive: Public Sex

I've been having a read through past posts on the blog. Inevitably, things are written, read and rarely re-visited but some of the posts are well worth a second look (if I do say so myself!). For some of you, it may well be the first time you read these posts. So, starting today, I begin a series of posts that pull together past posts around a number of themes. This week, it's the turn of 'Public Sex'.

Those Naughty Firefighters

ACLU Steps into the Craig Saga – are sting operations “unconstitutional”?

San Rafael Sting Operation

Bookshop Raid

Public Sex and Private Eye

Bring on the Public Sex

Dogging: A Love Story

A fumble on the beach and turning a blind eye

Men Cautioned for Sex Act in Public Toilets

Public Sex in New York

Park & Ride Arrests

Cruising in Amsterdam

Public Sex in Reading

UK Cottaging

The Comfort Zone

Sex in a Cubicle Private?

Stan Collymore on Jeremy Kyle

Police Destroy Public Sex Images

Public Sex, a Knight and Oxford’s Capture by the Whore of Babylon

Operation Aqua and the Coalition Against Cruising

The Right to Public Sex

The Fairoaks Project: Visions of a 70s Bathhouse

Abject Intimacies: Resource

I just wanted to flag up this new, and already brilliant blog by a law PhD student at Reading University, called 'Abject Intimacies'. Check it out here. I've also added the blog to my list of links down the left-hand-side as it looks set to be a terrific resource.

Scottish Consultation on Criminalisation of the Purchase and Sale of Sex (Scotland) Bill

A quick remidner that there's jsut a couple of weeks left ro respond to the public constation on a Scottish MSP's attempt at introducing a law to ban the purchasing of sex. Read the full consultation document here. The Sexual Freedom Coalition have published their responses here.

Porn Lifestyles and Staying Hard

I picked this story up from the Naked Sword blog (NSFW), and it concerns the product 'boijoy'. No, this isn't the name of a new inter-generational sex magazine, but rather a 'a;;-natural', male enhancement product. Basically, it's a Viagra alternative, although I have no idea how effective/comparative it is. What's interesting is a series of male porn stars have been liend up to advertise the US product. These are young guys for whom a natural erection is not an issue but here, their reputations as porn-stars is being utilised to sell this product. Don't settle for 'normal' sex, the advert essentially says, enjoy sex just like you see in the porn film. It's a really interesting contribution to the 'pornification' of culture that Feona Attwood has previously noted. Watch the video below (it's safe :-) )

Equal Love Files

The Equal Love case has been filed to European Court. Eight British couples - four gay and four heterosexual - have filed a joint legal application to the European Court of Human Rights today, Wednesday, 2 February, seeking to overturn the twin bans on gay civil marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships (picture credited to Chris Houston). An academic alwyer, Robert Wintemute is at the forefront of the campaign, commenting in a press release that:

“Our Equal Love campaign wants both marriages and civil partnerships opened up to all couples, different-sex and same-sex. Let everyone have a free and equal choice,” said Professor Wintemute.

“Banning same-sex marriage and different-sex civil partnerships violates Articles 8, 12 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“It's discriminatory and obnoxious, like having separate drinking fountains or beaches for different racial groups, even though the water is the same. The only function of the twin bans is to mark lesbian and gay people as socially and legally inferior to heterosexual people.

"I am confident that we have a good chance of persuading the European Court of Human Rights that the UK's system of segregating couples into two 'separate but equal' legal institutions violates the European Convention. I predict that same-sex couples will be granted access to marriage in the UK and that this will be because the UK Government will eventually accept that it cannot defend the current discriminatory system,” he said.

Wintemeute is a highly respected human rights lawyer and his support of the case (he's also been a big activist of LGBT equality in Russia) adds weight to the case. That said, I remain pessimistic about the outcome but I continue to wish the campaign well.

Read more on the Equal Love website here.