25.5.12
‘Sexy Baby’ Documents How the Cyber Age Changed Women and Sex
A 12-year-old girl, a 22-year-old labiaplasty patient, and a 32-year-old former adult film star: all are subjects of ‘Sexy Baby,’ a documentary premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival that explores the relationship between women and sex in the online era. Marlow Stern spoke with the filmmakers and subjects.
Sexy Baby, directed by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus, a journalist and a photographer, respectively, at theMiami Herald, analyzes how pornography, social media, and pop culture are affecting the sex lives of girls and women through the eyes of its three female subjects. There’s Winnifred, a precocious 12-year-old growing up in New York City who struggles to balance her public and private lives in the age of Facebook; Laura, 22, an elementary school teacher in North Carolina whose porn-obsessed boyfriend is pressuring her to get a “labiaplasty,” a plastic surgery procedure that reduces the labia; and Nichole (aka Nikita Kash) is a 32-year-old ex-porn star who teaches housewives and co-eds pole-dancing lessons while trying to settle into a more conventional role and start a family.
Like the recently released documentary Bully, Sexy Baby is an important—and at times chilling—film meant to provoke intelligent debate.
A Memory of June by Claude McKay
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,
With scarlet roses tinting her green breast,
And mating thrushes ushering in her day,
And Earth on tiptoe for her golden guest,
I always see the evening when we met--
The first of June baptized in tender rain--
And walked home through the wide streets, gleaming wet,
Arms locked, our warm flesh pulsing with love's pain.
I always see the cheerful little room,
And in the corner, fresh and white, the bed,
Sweet scented with a delicate perfume,
Wherein for one night only we were wed;
Where in the starlit stillness we lay mute,
And heard the whispering showers all night long,
And your brown burning body was a lute
Whereon my passion played his fevered song.
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,
With scarlet roses staining her fair feet,
My soul takes leave of me to sing all day
A love so fugitive and so complete.
With scarlet roses tinting her green breast,
And mating thrushes ushering in her day,
And Earth on tiptoe for her golden guest,
I always see the evening when we met--
The first of June baptized in tender rain--
And walked home through the wide streets, gleaming wet,
Arms locked, our warm flesh pulsing with love's pain.
I always see the cheerful little room,
And in the corner, fresh and white, the bed,
Sweet scented with a delicate perfume,
Wherein for one night only we were wed;
Where in the starlit stillness we lay mute,
And heard the whispering showers all night long,
And your brown burning body was a lute
Whereon my passion played his fevered song.
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,
With scarlet roses staining her fair feet,
My soul takes leave of me to sing all day
A love so fugitive and so complete.
24.5.12
23.5.12
I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.
O scales of feeling.
I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and
face of some passerby.
I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow the
moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.
O scales of feeling.
I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and
face of some passerby.
I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow the
moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.
'Home' by Toni Morrison
“Whose house is this?”
The first four words of Toni Morrison’s new book greet — or assail — us before the story even begins. They’re from the epigraph, which quotes a song cycle written by the author some 20 years ago and therefore, it seems safe to say, not originally intended for this book, but an indication, perhaps, of how long its themes have been haunting her. And “haunting” is a fitting word for the lyric itself, in which a speaker professes to lack both recognition of and accountability for the strange, shadowy, dissembling domicile in which he finds himself. The atmosphere of alienation makes the song’s final line even more uncanny: “Say, tell me, why does its lock fit my key?”
Thus the stage is set for “Home”: on the basis of its publisher’s description a novel, on the basis of its length a novella, and on the basis of its stripped-down, symbol-laden plot something of an allegory. It tells the story of Frank Money, a 24-year-old Korean War veteran, as he embarks on a reluctant journey home. But where — and what — is home? Frank is already back from the fighting when we meet him, a year after being discharged from an integrated Army into a segregated homeland. Since then, he has wandered the streets of Seattle, “not totally homeless, but close.” He has gambled his Army pay and lost it, worked odd jobs and lost them, lived with a girlfriend and lost her, and all the while struggled, none too successfully, against the prospect of losing his mind. Continue Reading...
Once upon a time, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy was one of the best kept secrets of novelist Anne Rice's body of work, published under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure. Any prolific reader of Rice's novels understands that when they open that cover, they are bound to enter a world so deeply conceived, so sumptuously described, that it takes on a life and plausibility all its own, and this series is no exception.
The tale begins with the awakening of Sleeping Beauty to ravishment by the Prince who breaks the spell of sleep on her kingdom. Indebted to the Prince, her parents consent to allow Beauty to be taken as tribute to the castle of the Prince's mother, Queen Eleanor, whose power dominates the surrounding kingdoms. Beauty is thereafter made to serve the erotic pleasures of the Queen's courtiers, male and female, who attempt to instill empathy and humility in her, and prepare her to be a wise ruler when she inherits her family's throne. This subtext of forging an entitled and spoiled aristocrat into an empathetic one is a clever and satisfying justification for the trials that Beauty must endure.
Unfortunately, Beauty and her fellow slaves Princes Alexi and Laurent, are rebellious. This results in deeper punishment, humiliations, and painfully pleasurable sexual torments. Their refusal to embrace the lessons of the Queen and her aristocracy prolongs their trials, leading to exile to a village of the common people. Here, their royal rank is meaningless and invites deeper, even resentful torments. When this also proves inadequate, they are exiled to a foreign land where they face the greatest trials of all. CONTINUE READING
22.5.12
Tracing Present Scars to Past Traumas
By MATT MCCANN
Time, pitilessly lurching forward, has a way of altering memory.
And a memory can be a powerful thing. Tweaked, reinterpreted, repackaged — in a war-ravaged country, it’s a political tool, to be sold back to people seeking stability, seeking answers. Or, it could be a means to empowerment, a way to define one’s course and actions across a lifetime.
Elizabeth D. Herman in her series “A Woman’s War,” examines memory’s relationship to the present, but also gives a voice to those often pigeonholed in the story of war: women. Ms. Herman understood that the world was messier, that women had roles that went beyond either caregiver or victim.
“I went into this project knowing that women as victims of rape was one version of history that was talked about a lot,” said Ms. Herman, 23. “It was kind of the only version of women in the war that was put forth.”
Have you ever wondered what would
happen after you die? Not to you, not your spirit, I don’t think about an
afterlife. I mean what would happen to the life you left behind? What would
people say about you? Who would be asking questions, and what would those
questions be? I guess it all really depends on how you die…Death is funny like
that, sometimes there are cut and dry answers, other times the truth is not so
simple.
17.5.12
The goal of That Girl Rocks is to compel 1,000 people to submit a video about a girl who rocks their world. Why? Because we at I AM THAT GIRL are passionate about using media as a platform to build girls up instead of breaking them down. If we can get 1,000 girls to do this, we (along with our celebrity supporters) will hand-deliver a package to The Ellen DeGeneres Show with a copy of each video and a request to highlight our movement on her show.
I've spent years working in the entertainment industry. From red-carpet interviews to sport shows to a hard-fought battle on the reality TV show Survivor, I've been in the thick of it -- as a host, a professional storyteller, a media personality and a content creator. But it wasn't until I performed in a progressive women's play called The Vagina Monologues, written by Eve Ensler, that a passion deep in my soul was ignited and I was instantaneously thrust into a completely different trajectory. I realized -- through this play that simultaneously entertained and educated its audience -- that storytelling could ignite change; it could create awareness, inspire, challenge and engage. I also realized that the entertainment industry was a tool and a vehicle to reach that audience.
Why France’s New First Lady Is Straight-Up Awesome
We're falling in love — slowly, naturally, just letting it happen — with Valérie Trierweiler, the new first lady of France. Allow us to explain.
After reading this New York Times profile, we think we might have real relationship potential with Trierweiler. Here are some reasons why:
1. Trierweiler's vowed to hold on to her own identity — and career — even though her partner, François Hollande, is now president. The 47-year-old has been one of the country's top political journalists for more than 20 years, and doesn't intend to stop working anytime soon. "In France, a first lady has no status, and therefore she isn't supposed to do anything else," Trierweiler told the Times. "My perception of life is not to ask François Hollande, who isn't the father of my children, to support me financially." Damn straight.
The Flower Boat by Robert Frost
Under the hand of the village barber,
And her in the angle of house and barn
His deep-sea dory has found a harbor.
At anchor she rides the sunny sod
As full to the gunnel of flowers growing
As ever she turned her home with cod
From George's bank when winds were blowing.
And I judge from that elysian freight
That all they ask is rougher weather,
And dory and master will sail by fate
To seek the Happy Isles together.
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