Amy Bond, “Secret Life of a Mormon Porn Star”
”I thought I could make my double life work, until meeting a fellow Mormon on set forced me to confront my own contradictions.”
“As Angola decriminalizes homosexuality, where does the African continent stand?“
”Angola has done away with criminalizing homosexuality, removing a notorious ‘vices against nature’ provision in its penal code. Other African nations still punish people for same-sex relationships.”
Libby Brooks, “New Scottish census bill conflates sex and gender — report”
”Serious lack of consultation with women’s groups has led to the publication of legislation that is not fit for purpose and conflates sex and gender identity, according to a highly critical report on proposed changes to Scotland’s census.”
Antonia Crane, “Secret Life of a Stripper Who’s Also a Social Worker”
”I’m ‘Candy’ here but my regulars call me ‘The Lady in Red’. Riley and I always work on Tuesdays, waiting for the rare drifter to pop in for a happy hour beer and a quick blast of AC so we can talk him into a twofer and pay our bills.”
Garrett Epps, “A Temporary Win for Abortion Rights”
”Pro-choice advocates shouldn’t get their hopes up after the Supreme Court put a Louisiana statute on hold.”
“Female African coders ‘on the front-line of the battle’ to change gender power relations: UN chief“
”Young female African coders are “on the front-line” of the battle to change traditionally male power relations and bring about a more equitable balance between men and women, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said during his visit to Ethiopia to attend the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.”
Simon Johnson, “Scottish Highland games considering how to include non-binary gender competitors”
”Scotland's Highland games are considering how to encourage competitors with a 'non-binary' gender following demands that traditional men-only events should not receive public funding.”
Jacob Pagano, “The Pirate Radio Broadcaster Who Occupied Alcatraz and Terrified the FBI”
”Fifty years ago, John Trudell overcame tragedy to become the national voice for Native Americans—and a model for a new generation of activists.”
Maria Sherman, “Casey Affleck Says Film Set in a 'Society Without Women' Has Nothing to Do With the Sexual Harassment Allegations Made Against Him“
”Casey Affleck, accused sexual harasser and all around creep, will soon burden the entertainment world with a new film, Light of My Life. The movie—written, directed by, and starring Affleck—just debuted at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival (it does not currently have a U.S. distributor), and according to Indiewire, is an ‘apocalyptic relationship drama...set in a society without women where gender roles have to be renegotiated’.”
Article Spotlight
"In this article I highlight how Moll’s understanding and changing judgment of homosexuality vacillated between three explanatory frameworks: gender inversion, sexual object choice, and age disparity. Whereas the first one had been typical of new biomedical theories since the late nineteenth century, the second instead pointed to the future, and the third drew on older patterns of thinking about homosexual behavior. Moll’s changing and partly contradictory views of homosexuality were not only intertwined with his ingenious explanations of sexuality in general but also related to the variety of same-sex practices that he witnessed, his professional interests as a private psychotherapist, his antagonistic position vis-à-vis Hirschfeld and Freud, and his mixed feelings about homosexual emancipation and the impact of sexology on society. I will demonstrate how all of these factors throw light on the ambiguities of sexual modernity and may also explain Moll’s eventual marginalization in sexology and sexual history, even though his work now actually seems less outdated than that of some of his colleagues.”
Episode Spotlight
For years, telephone companies had been encouraging customers to “reach out and touch someone.” In the 1980s, phone sex lines and dial-a-porn transformed the intimacy of phone conversations into a multi-million-dollar sexual enterprise. A simple and relatively cheap phone call could connect you with dial-a-porn, a telephone service offering short erotic recordings. Phone sex lines were more expensive, and featured operators, known as fantasy artists, who would act out sexual fantasies for and with you. Over the course of the 1980s, telephones, credit cards and imaginations brought countless people together to co-create sexual fantasies, and experience new forms of sexual gratification.
Books
Podcasts
Radio Atlantic’s “Something Rotten in the State of Virginia”
”The staff writers Adam Serwer and Vann Newkirk join Alex Wagner to discuss the news that Virginia’s Democratic governor and attorney general both wore blackface.”
