Ok, I know that most drinks at Starbucks cost less than $5, even a Venti soy add shot whateveraccino. But that’s what you’ll get, if you don’t have your receipt from purchasing Grand Theft Auto two years ago. (You’ll get $35, if you did.) And, of course, if you’re still upset at a bit of consensual sex among adults being included as a secret players could unlock in the Mature-rated game.

Techdirt has a nice pithy summary of the results of the class action suit.

I suppose they can raise the prices on the smaller sizes and lower the prices on the larger sizes to even out and still make the same profit. It’s funny though because I’ve always had to pay (a lot) more for bras than normal sized people … hell, we’re all used to paying more for a Venti than a Tall. I’ve never really questioned it.

But then, we don’t pay more for bigger shoes … do we? I don’t know, because I’m in the average size range for women’s shoes.

Women get bra price equality
LONDON (Reuters) - Forty years after feminists threatened to burn their bras, British women have won another battle in the fight for equality.

Asda, Britain’s second-biggest food retailer and owned by U.S. giant Wal-Mart, says it will no longer charge women more for bigger bras in its George fashion range.

“We’re putting an end once and for all to one of the last prejudices — that of the bigger-busted woman,” said brand director Fiona Lambert in a statement.

“From now on, all bras at George will be exactly the same price from A cup through to F cup.”

I’ve known RKB since we were tiny grasshopper writers, when we both started out trying to offer a new perspective on sex and how we write and talk about sexuality. Her piece yesterday in the Huffington Post sums it up beautifully: writing about sex does not have to exploit sex as a way to get attention. There is room to write about it while respecting the reader and accepting that you don’t have all the answers. (At least, I sure as hell don’t.)

Sex Doesn’t Need to be Sensationalized
I wasn’t surprised to read that newly hired and newly resigned New York Press sex columnist, former child actor Claudia Lonow, had plagiarized her writing from popular sex advice columnist Dan Savage. (Savage has no official comment at present.) When I read the incest question she answered on Jezebel, and David Blum’s flippant response that these are perfectly reasonable topics to discuss right off the bat, I had to wonder why they chose to go that route. Sex is a topic that people are always interested in, and always will be, yet instead of addressing it in a straightforward way, all too many media outlets choose to try to make sex “sexier” rather than giving readers enough credit to think logically and critically about the topic.

continued…

Tomorrow, tomorrow, god damn it, tomorrow, is only a day away. And I need four days before I can do anything non-billable or my house of cards is going to blow right on down.

I’m trapped in the bay area by the day job and can’t make it to Love LA. Which means it’s even MORE important that you go and report back to me on whether you liked it, whether you’d go again, and whether you think events like this should be held more places and more often.

$5 discount if you buy tix online and use the promotion code LAWEEKLY.

It’s from 11am to 7pm at Boulevard 3, 6523 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California. (Map)

Why am I so adamant about promoting this event, you ask? Well, let me explain. Wait, no time: let me sum up.

Having been to several adult events and trade shows, I’m delighted that these vendors (who I believe were chosen by invitation only, but I haven’t fact-checked that belief) are experimenting with an alternative way to bring sex stuff into your lives. I’ve nothing against porn, but I’m not a fan of the loud noise, the big screens, the gigantic *presence* of adult events; I’m always overwhelmed by the sensory overload.. I feel the same way about CES, by the way - it’s not that it’s porn, it’s that it’s loud and bright and MTV — a tangible forcefield of resistance every sense has to get through to focus on whatever I want to focus on — and it’s completely overwhelming to me.

I like the idea of a quieter, more… elegant, maybe? … way to present sex and sensuality and eroticism. I like the educational program, focusing on things you can put into practice right away. I like that the vendors all focus on high quality and beauty, and that you can browse among all the products and services without having to shout over a thumping bass line blasting out of gigantic subwoofers.

It’s like a celebration of sex the way most of us do it, or want to do it, or wish we could do it: with other people, with respect, with humor and adventure and play and sensuality. Sex can be so many things — celebrating a lifelong love, romping with a good friend, a slice of daring with a sexy almost-stranger — and yet so many big adult events are overwhelmed by old school pornography ‘tude. And I think that’s because most adult events are sponsored by the porn industry and it’s great that they do that and that people have the opportunity to go explore and hang out in an Adult context.

But Love LA focuses on sex and that’s even better than porn, in my book. I’m bummed to miss this first one — and I have faith there will be many more, and that I’ll be able to get involved with the next one.

Ever notice how many songs sung by men are about expressing love through sex? Going home early to make love, staying in at night to make love, saying “I love you” without words, etc. And ever notice how many songs sung by women are about expressing love through words? Tell me, whisper to me, say this, etc.

And then there are all those songs sung by men about not wanting boys anywhere near their daughters because boys only think about sex.*

No wonder people are confused.

*My current favorite is “Come on in boy, sit on down / And tell me ’bout yourself / So you like my daughter, do you now / Yeah we think she’s something else / She’s her daddy’s girl and her mama’s world / She deserves respect, that’s what she’ll get / ain’t it son / Now y’all run along and have some fun / I’ll see you when you get back / Bet I’ll be up all night / Still cleaning this gun”

Thanks again to everyone who talked to me about sex parties, who agreed to be interviewed, who gave generously of their time and expertise … and then waited for a year when the original publisher went through a reorganization and wasn’t able to run it, so I placed it elsewhere.

And here it is:

Are Sex Parties The New Vibrator?

I walk down the street, passing clumps of smokers spilling from nearby nightclubs, looking for the private address I’d been given earlier. It takes two passes to find the right place, and then a friendly face at the door asks my name. I feel a sudden desire to whisper a pass phrase, like “melba toast” or “caffeine jitters,” but instead I step inside and climb the long wooden stairway so typical of San Francisco’s Victorian flats.

I have arrived at Club Kiss, one of several sex party series hosted by Kinky Salon founders Polly Pandemonium and Scott Levkoff. Polly is greeting new arrivals while Scott checks names off a list and collects entry fees. A pretty woman in a corset and boy-cut panties leads newcomers on tours of Mission Control, which everyone refers to simply as “the space.” Down the hall, a bartender serves drinks brought by the guests; a couple relaxes on the smoking patio and others hang up outerwear in the do-it-yourself coat check.

continued at Tango magazine

On a side note, I was telling Dr. Marty Klein about this article — or, rather, the experience that led to the article — just yesterday, while I was babbling and starstruck over lunch with him, and he was shocked that I’d never been to a sex party before that. I explained that I was in my mid-20s before I knew such things existed, although I was vaguely aware of swinging as an abstract concept. Of course, by the time I was assigned the article, I didn’t even think of swinging and sex parties as the same thing (they’re not), and yet I still thought it was the kind of thing that Other People did — hip people, exotic people, people who Go Out And Do Things — but not something I could do, no matter how intrigued I was.

I’m not a partier, and not a night owl, and I listen to folk and dislike trance/house/club, and I worry about how I would look, and I’ve never been a sexual exhibitionist (on the contrary, the thought of being watched shut me down), so sex parties couldn’t possibly be my bag, baby. Now, if you’ve read page 74 of my first book, you know I’m not at all opposed to group sex scenes (mmmm, page 74), and yet I had an Idea of who does interesting, exciting sex things like parties, and I just wasn’t cool enough.

I learned otherwise when I finally went to one, which served to remind me that we should never assume we’re not cool enough for something. And while one might have good reasons to do or not do a thing, “I’m not cool enough” is never a good reason. Particularly when it comes to sex.

This Sunday is the Love LA “Celebration of Sensuality,” and you can get $5 off each ticket if you buy online and use the promo code LAWEEKLY. That means it’s only $20 if you plan ahead. (The door price is $35.) Prizes, seminars, sex toys, and fun people.

Info about the show here

I’ll be there most of the day and ducking out around 5 to get to the airport to fly to San Jose, so if you’re in LA and planning to go, find me before 5 (or email me directly and let me know you’re going, and I’ll find you).

I’m at the sex tech conference with a bunch of folks who work with youth in various sex-related capacities, like HIV prevention and outreach, health classes, counseling, media, etc. I’m too tired to blog coherently but I wanted to say Hi Nice To Meet You to everyone I’ve spoken with here today, and to announce to the world at large that this is a group of smart, sex-positive people intent on figuring out the most effective ways to help support teens and young adults as they make sexual choices and begin their sexual journeys — and those ways have a lot to do with technology.

What’s really great is how many people I’ve talked with who recognize that young people need to make mistakes and get hurt along the way too, just like everyone else, and that we’re here to help and support and guide and hopefully help keep them from the really devastating stuff — but we can’t , and shouldn’t, Protect The Children from everything.

Sheltering young people behind a web of denial, dishonesty and fear sets them up for much more dangerous and painful experiences than giving them the freedom to screw up on their own like normal people. The best we can do is be here with support — emotional and social as well as informational and medical — and do the best we can to guide them away from life-destroying consequences.

Dr. Marty Klein made some powerful points about how parents are under tremendous pressure these days to FEAR, and to DO SOMETHING to protect their kids. Yet most of that pressure is false, and most of those fears are false - I think that’s one reason people get so anxious, because they don’t actually have the information to back up the message — because there isn’t any. So we scramble and worry and fear and try to protect and restrict and defend — but we’re not sure how, or against what.

Melissa Gira liveblogged most of his session here.

There are a few actual teenagers here too, and I hope to get to talk to them further, either at tonight’s reception or tomorrow between sessions. I want to ask them bluntly: you’re 16, you’re peer educators, you’re working with adults who work with youth. What do YOU think. What do YOU need. What would help YOU — what would have helped you a year or two ago — what do you see happening. It’s an amazingly connected generation. They’re like a school of anchovies — at any moment, any one of the fish can dart in a new direction and the whole group follows. Then another goes in another direction, and the group follows. Very networked, very communicative, and very much *together*.

My commentary about the SaSi and What It All Means, in this week’s Sex Drive:

‘Sensual Intelligence’ Gives New SaSi Sex Toy an Erotic Edge

i’ve been both restless and blocked, lately; i couldn’t settle and i couldn’t think. i drove down to ocean beach — i’m in san francisco this week — and i liked the promise of the brilliant horizon. my cell phone can’t capture the power of the experience but i thought it looked neat anyway:

Last night I dreamed that I gave my mom some sort of vibrator as a Secret Santa gift for her to open at work. (She is an elementary school teacher in my hometown. This Would Not Be Good.) It was a large base, kind of like a blender, to which you attached a dildo and then to that you attached some sort of … head. In the dream, I met up with her after school and we were walking home, with her carrying the thing, and she was explaining to me why she only just barely didn’t get fired for having it at school.

Then I dreamed that my brother had brought my purse from my car, which was parked far away from the shopping center, so I could buy us lattes. The rest of the dream was just the sensation of sipping through a to-go cup with lid and letting the soy milk linger on my tongue. Yes, that’s right, it was a Hot Coffee dream.

I’m working too much, aren’t I.

I just managed to finagle a revised travel schedule which allows me to be in town for Love LA. Here’s the blurb, lifted shamelessly from the home page:

From the most creative and sensual minds in Southern California comes a show that will tingle your senses and refine your sexual knowledge.

Welcome to LOVE LA, the first ever Sexual Health, Education and Entertainment Exhibition.

We have created an event for anyone and everyone interested in expanding their sexual horizons in a fun, dignified, and beautiful environment. LOVE LA will present the finest products, retail outlets, seminars, and performances ever assembled in one place, without the in-your-face sexuality common at other adult events.

Even the venue speaks in a softer tone; one step into the gorgeous and historic Boulevard 3 will titillate the senses. Minutes from the Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater, and limitless fine dining, LOVE LA will leave you invigorated and sexually liberated.

We welcome you to join us for this exciting event. Your celebration of sensuality is just beginning…

The workshop schedule includes classes in BDSM, polyamory, anal sex and toys, while the exhibitor list — I just discovered — is packed with people and products I love. nJoy? Monkey Rocker? JT Stockroom? Aneros? Bring it on.

Sassy SaSi
You know how a good lover experiments to find out which techniques create which sensations in you, and remembers the results for future lovemaking, while still branching out often enough you don’t bored? The SaSi, which made its U.S. debut last night at a party hosted by its stateside distributor Babeland, does the same thing.

Like its sister the Je Joue, the SaSi uses movement to provide sensation not unlike that of a fingertip or tongue stroking your body, although of course vibration is still available at the touch of a button. But unlike the Je Joue (or any other sexual device I know of), it uses artificial intelligence to figure out what, exactly, turns you on.

The SaSi tries different movements and waits for you to press the “don’t stop” button. At that point, it continues what it’s doing until you press the button again. Over five or so uses, it figures out what you like most, and it learns how to do those things — while still experimenting from time to time, just to make sure.

They should be available sometime in March/April this year. I’ve made a note in my calendar.

Affordable Luxury
Big Teaze Toys, makers of the rubber duckie vibrators, has launched a new line of luxury toys called B3. They’re moderately priced (less than $100) and feel lovely in the hand.

The ball is my favorite because it snugs gently in the hand, but the capsule is probably a more familiar form factor for people. They’ve designed it so you can focus the full vibrations where you want them while minimizing the amount of vibration that transfers to your hand — no more numb fingers.

Heatseek
Heatseek is a content management system, a browser, a video player, a download manager, a security system, and an adults-only search engine all in one. It has the cleanest user interface of any software I’ve used in a while, adult or otherwise, and lacks even the slightest hint of malware.

The video viewer enables you to set bookmarks so you can go straight to your favorite parts or put sections on loop, while the encryption makes it practically impossible to get to your adult content (”practically” because I believe anything that can be locked can be unlocked, but who’d bother to crack the 128 bits just to see your collection?).

The net effect is you can bring all your adult content, whether local or online, into Heatseek and then no one can see it but you. And you can do so in comfort because the interface is so practical and intuitive and simple.

The 2008 Adult Entertainment Expo is loud, flashy, crowded — and shrinking. The usual wall of sound and porn still descends upon you the moment you walk in. But eel your way through the crush to the back of the floor and you’ll find generic exhibitors where the small or entrepreneurial adult businesses used to be.

Gone are the Straight College Men who practically leaped at passing women, hugging them in ways that proved they weren’t gay. Gone are the hopeful teledildonics engineers and the humble ceramic dildo sculptors. Instead, you can sit in a massage chair, get your teeth whitened, or smack a golf ball into a little hole.

If this is what happens when porn goes mainstream, I’m not sure I’m in favor of it after all.

That said, we found plenty to play with at this year’s convention. Industry standbys pushed their new “alternative porn” product lines while the novelty folks did a brisk trade in toys, lube and inflatable sex furniture.

Note that while my friend Seth took these pictures, I resized and cropped them myself. And since I have absolutely NO photo editing skills, the lighting and whatnot has not been balanced or whatever. Blame me, not him, for any signs of amateurity. Heheh.

Inflatables Are Fun
Reclining on the Cupid’s Couch, a surprisingly sturdy inflatable love platform, for a cyber quickie. Heavy-duty vinyl cleans up easily, and rumor has it that in the event of a swinger party emergency, this sofa becomes a flotation device.

Parseltongue Is Sexy
Snakebabe and herpeculturist Maria Gara and Sperm the Snake, an albino Burmese python, run a reptile rescue and help educate snake owners how to take optimum care of their companions.

Good, Good, Good, Good Vibrations
First an audio-driven vibrator, now a karaoke machine? Two women put the newly iPhone-compatible OhMiBod through its paces.

You Rock My World
The world’s oldest sex-tech can still hold its own against the whizzbang products of modern times. These lovely items from Hard as Rock are handcrafted to order after you pick the size, shape and type of stone that will look best on your computer desk.

Alien Petting Zoo? or My Nightstand?
Designers continue to experiment with form factor and packaging. When not in use, these colorful erotic accessories from Fun Factory charge in their docks.

More Inflatables
The Sexercise balls have attachments for both sexes, sometimes even in the same ball. Of course, you can also make it office-friendly by replacing the attachment with the screw cap.

It’s not actually quiet. It’s not possible for this convention to do anything quietly. The press room sponsor Digital Playground has a really neat few-minute trailer of its upcoming Pirates II title playing on loop in the press room. Loudly. The show floor is a cacophony of porn soundtracks, music and moans and screams and gasps smashing into each other and becoming a wall of noise that makes it difficult (for me, anyway) to think.

But it’s quiet in that it’s smaller, with a different mix of exhibitors that don’t have anything to do with porn; exhibitors who can adapt to any trade show. A golf thingie, laser teeth whitening, massage chairs, cosmetic surgery centers, clothes and purses …

People are talking about what they get out of AEE, whether they need to get booths or just come and walk around and talk to people, whether the show is going to have to change radically to keep its place at the top of the adult food chain, etc. Some folks are just tired; others are actually disappointed; and some newbies are thrilled to have made it all the way from Australia, the U.K., Korea, and other places to exhibit their sexy things at THIS show, in THIS city.

I kicked off my particular AEE journey with a small salon in my room. When about half the folks had shown up, we all piled on the bed and took pictures of our reflection in the ceiling mirror. Bonk chica bow, eh? Audacia Ray posted a picture here.

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